Knowing your tactic works.

I'm completely over the whole AI cheating thing. I've accepted that it's part of the game and I've even kind of embraced it because it shows that what you are doing works. It's not cheating of course, it is indeed your tactics as all the brown nosers on here will jump quickly to tell you.

So how do you know you've created a great tactic? Well it's simple, these things start happening -

You concede from virtually all set pieces given away in the final 3rd of the pitch.

The opposition will always win the ball in the air from attacking corners scoring very often.

You give away many more penalties.

Circa 90% of all goals conceded come from set pieces or own goals.

You'll hit the woodwork more times in just a few games than most teams do in a season. They'll even bring this stat up in post match press conferences bless their little cottons.

So don't be down in the dumps if this is happening to you because what you have done is created a tactic that the AI cannot beat legitimately. You're doing great :-)

It's not your fault that morale has no effect on AI teams, likewise it's not your fault that all of a sudden your supposedly "motivated" 6ft+ defender is standing still or getting out jumped by hobbit'esque strikers scoring their "First goal of the season"

I have 3 tactics I use with 3 different formations, you know just like Manchester Utd, Chelsea, Barcelona etc etc do all the time (sic). Getting absolutely bored to death of the game after guiding a team from level 9 to league one winning promotion year after year, surely wouldn't be the case would it ?!?!?! Why would you keep playing hour upon hour if this were the case ?!?!?

Can't wait until FM2013 to see if the continual lack of imagination from the team at SI carries on, unless of course they've decided to put down their copies of the new scientist and actually started watching football, who knows maybe even playing it a bit...............which come to think of it is probably quite difficult in chinos and deck shoes.

Well that wasted a few minutes of the working day.....where was I?

I know mine works because I haven't changed it since FM10!

I know mine works because I haven't changed it since FM10!

Do you play as Darlington?

why did you need to start a new thread thats mostly the same whining with just a different title?

The ME doesn't know the difference between what settings you put in and what the AI puts in. After you consider that, you can safely say that you're wrong.

why did you need to start a new thread thats mostly the same whining with just a different title?

Tongue in cheek my good fellow and I bought the game, signed up for this forum so I'll discuss it as I see fit.

So how do you know you've created a great tactic? Well it's simple, these things start happening -

You concede from virtually all set pieces given away in the final 3rd of the pitch.

The opposition will always win the ball in the air from attacking corners scoring very often.

You give away many more penalties.

Circa 90% of all goals conceded come from set pieces or own goals.

You'll hit the woodwork more times in just a few games than most teams do in a season. They'll even bring this stat up in post match press conferences bless their little cottons.

I haven't encountered any of these problems, maybe i've just been lucky.

The ME doesn't know the difference between what settings you put in and what the AI puts in. After you consider that, you can safely say that you're wrong.

I shall consider that. Thanks :-)

if you play the game and not watch the game it's the other way around...

I haven't encountered any of these problems, maybe i've just been lucky.

Have you really not had the woodwork comment during a press conference? I had it four times on seven post match conferences.

Have you really not had the woodwork comment during a press conference? I had it four times on seven post match conferences.

I havent, to be honest i rarely see the woodwork hit during a game, certainly no more than i would normally expect irl. like i say maybe i'm just lucky!

I am currently playing a long-running FM11 save, where I simultaneously manage a top club in La Liga (Sevilla) and Serie A (Juventus). Sevilla in 2036 is a great squad, extremely determined, highly professional, fittest, fastest team in the league. First game of the season we lose against Sporting, away from home. It was a pathetic display! No matter what, I couldn't turn the result around, changing my tempo, substitutions, ripping into the players at half time... Does this mean my tactic was bad, or the AI was cheating? No. The players had a bad day. A very very bad day, because they were complacent, and I couldn't get them to snap out of it. Once Sporting was up their eyes grew big, and they were the hungrier team for the rest of the game.

With Juventus, we had won atleast 6 in a row, and come up against a good Fiorentina side (6th or 7th best team possibly, but with a very good strike partnership and MCs). They play a 4-1-2-1-2 but I forgot to adjust my team's formation pre-game, (possibly due to managing Sevilla ) and we lined up with our very proven, very effective 4-4(advanced LW)-2. They ran wild, their DMC and AMC were top class, my wingers and fullbacks didn't do f*** all with the space they had, and even after I subbed a winger out to stick in the hole momentum and the scoreboard were already on Fiorentina's side. We managed to pull one back with a great piece of individual skill, but Fiorentina managed a 2nd and we couldn't get back into the game in the last 30 or so minutes (as they sat very deep, and my players seemed to have given up trying, despite all being highly determined).

Again, AI cheating? No. Ineffective tactic? For the first 30 minutes, definitely. For the rest of the game the tactics were fairly balanced, but notice over the course of the rest of the game I scored 1, AND they scored 1. Problem is, I needed to score 2, and concede 0.

Players have a bad day, maybe you don't like how it plays out according to the ME, but bad days happen in real life. Look at Inter yesterday against Parma, lost 3-1, and looked terrible for long stretches.

Confirmation bias.

BTW it completely baffles me that people still think they are supposed use the same tactics, not make in game adjustments, and keep getting the same results. Likewise, the same people usually think that the AI isn't supposed to change tactics, make in game adjustments, and pull off upsets. It's almost as if these people have been so disconnected from the real world that the don't realize tactics that always work are phenomenon reserved for FM.

Confirmation bias.

BTW it completely baffles me that people still think they are supposed use the same tactics, not make in game adjustments, and keep getting the same results. Likewise, the same people usually think that the AI isn't supposed to change tactics, make in game adjustments, and pull off upsets. It's almost as if these people have been so disconnected from the real world that the don't realize tactics that always work are phenomenon reserved for FM.

Very much this

Confirmation bias.

BTW it completely baffles me that people still think they are supposed use the same tactics, not make in game adjustments, and keep getting the same results. Likewise, the same people usually think that the AI isn't supposed to change tactics, make in game adjustments, and pull off upsets. It's almost as if these people have been so disconnected from the real world that the don't realize tactics that always work are phenomenon reserved for FM.

Yes this is correct, except that those upsets regularly come from useless half-amateur players doing fantastic stuff rather than your team of world-class stars having a "bad day". So upsets and bad matches or bad luck is okay with me, but they need to make more sense visually than they do now because your players being complacent doesn't make the opposing team gain +20 in every attribute. Sadly, that is what it looks like. These complaining threads all say the same thing because SI hasn't managed to visualize the odd "off day" in a manner that prevents them from being perceived as ridiculous AI cheats. No matter how many times it is said in here that the AI doesn't cheat, it is still a problem that many customers believe they're being had on purpose, and it should be taken seriously - though as what it is, not at face value.

I'm completely over the whole AI cheating thing. I've accepted that it's part of the game and I've even kind of embraced it because it shows that what you are doing works. It's not cheating of course, it is indeed your tactics as all the brown nosers on here will jump quickly to tell you.

So how do you know you've created a great tactic? Well it's simple, these things start happening -

You concede from virtually all set pieces given away in the final 3rd of the pitch.

The opposition will always win the ball in the air from attacking corners scoring very often.

You give away many more penalties.

Circa 90% of all goals conceded come from set pieces or own goals.

You'll hit the woodwork more times in just a few games than most teams do in a season. They'll even bring this stat up in post match press conferences bless their little cottons.

So don't be down in the dumps if this is happening to you because what you have done is created a tactic that the AI cannot beat legitimately. You're doing great :-)

It's not your fault that morale has no effect on AI teams, likewise it's not your fault that all of a sudden your supposedly "motivated" 6ft+ defender is standing still or getting out jumped by hobbit'esque strikers scoring their "First goal of the season"

I have 3 tactics I use with 3 different formations, you know just like Manchester Utd, Chelsea, Barcelona etc etc do all the time (sic). Getting absolutely bored to death of the game after guiding a team from level 9 to league one winning promotion year after year, surely wouldn't be the case would it ?!?!?! Why would you keep playing hour upon hour if this were the case ?!?!?

Can't wait until FM2013 to see if the continual lack of imagination from the team at SI carries on, unless of course they've decided to put down their copies of the new scientist and actually started watching football, who knows maybe even playing it a bit...............which come to think of it is probably quite difficult in chinos and deck shoes.

Well that wasted a few minutes of the working day.....where was I?

I see this complaignt a lot, and I've suffered the same problem. I also suffered sudden morale drops for no apparent reason.

some people claim the ME can't cheat as it just calculates a bunch of variables and decides the match outcome based on that, and thus the outcome of your game is decided as soon as the game starts. But that kind of makes things worse because that renders the match engine completely pointless even tough it's a main selling point.

FM2011 was worse tough, I used a verry defensive counter tactick, I did really well with that untill suddenly I got many games where I was through on goal and the GK turned into Gandalf shouting YOU SHALL NOT PASS and stopping everything trying to pass him, the AI would then proceed to shoot from over 30 yards and score, often indeed first goal of the season goals. That at least is a bit less in this game.

Alltough my team did go from efficiënt and happy to depressed and unable to score and constantly losing by a single lucky goal

Yes this is correct, except that those upsets regularly come from useless half-amateur players doing fantastic stuff rather than your team of world-class stars having a "bad day". So upsets and bad matches or bad luck is okay with me, but they need to make more sense visually than they do now because your players being complacent doesn't make the opposing team gain +20 in every attribute. Sadly, that is what it looks like. These complaining threads all say the same thing because SI hasn't managed to visualize the odd "off day" in a manner that prevents them from being perceived as ridiculous AI cheats. No matter how many times it is said in here that the AI doesn't cheat, it is still a problem that many customers believe they're being had on purpose, and it should be taken seriously - though as what it is, not at face value.

Thank you for demonstrating the confirmation bias.

I bet when your players do fantastic things you don't think twice about the AI cheating for you. IRL rubbish players can have moments of class, so I'm not sure why you think it's so crazy to happen in the game. The problem isn't the AI cheating, it's inability of human players to cope with losing. You'll eventually get over it like I did, and realize silly things like these happen IRL

I find the link between instructions and what they mean for the players on the pitch very weird. Yet, I look at some of the successful tactics in the download centre and they make absolutely no sense whatsoever, yet, they work so well!!!!!! In my current save I'm playing as Changchun in China for a challenge and again I'm mesmerized as to why my players do the opposite to what I ask. I had my Full-Backs on tight zonal marking against the opposition wingers and it wasn't working so I changed it to so it wasn't tight marking, did I notice a change? Not at all! I don;t tinker too much I like to use the TC but it doesn't work how I want it to. I believe you should have on the ball and off the ball tactics. Does anybody remember the old CM where you had to place your players in a position depending where the ball was on the pitch, a kind of 'phase of play' scenario, I loved that and that was much more realistic than all these stupid instructions! I mean, 'creative freedom' means your player will pass the ball the wrong way, he will lose all sensibility because your 'creative freedom' isn't right, ridiculous! I can see where the OP is coming from as I've experienced the same, some haven't.

Thank you for demonstrating the confirmation bias.

I bet when your players do fantastic things you don't think twice about the AI cheating for you. IRL rubbish players can have moments of class, so I'm not sure why you think it's so crazy to happen in the game. The problem isn't the AI cheating, it's inability of human players to cope with losing. You'll eventually get over it like I did, and realize silly things like these happen IRL

That's because my players are fantastic, so they really should do fantastic things. If you can't see that this "confirmation bias" of yours may come from (or strengthened by) lack of nuance in the ME animations rather than being an internal process only, there's no wonder there's quite a bit of passive aggression going on in your posts. Nowhere did I use the word "cheating", though. Learn to read.

Edit: well I actually did, but I think there is quite a difference between "AI is cheating" and "the AI is perceived to cheat"... Which was the point of my post.

Tongue in cheek my good fellow and I bought the game, signed up for this forum so I'll discuss it as I see fit.

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

That's because my players are fantastic, so they really should do fantastic things.

Sorry to break it to you, but football doesn't work this way all the time.

If you can't see that this "confirmation bias" of yours may come from (or strengthened by) lack of nuance in the ME animations rather than being an internal process only, there's no wonder there's quite a bit of passive aggression going on in your posts.

Has nothing to do with the ME. If you saw a 3d representation of a rubbish player scoring a wonder strike how would that change the perception of the AI cheating? The OP didn't even mention the ME. Like I said before, the problem is with human players thinking the game should be a breeze. Look at injuries for example. Everyone complain that their are too many injuries in the game the second their team gets hit hard by injuries. The fact of the matter is team get decimated by injuries regularly. I would even say that there are not enough injuries in the game b/c SI knew how much people would complain. If you people really feel they're being hard done by the AI just save often and restart every time you feel you've been cheated. It's better than creating pointless thread b/c you lost to a side you feel you should beat.

Lastly, in all my years of reading this forum and playing FM I have yet to see any evidence that the AI cheats human players.

Nowhere did I use the word "cheating", though. Learn to read.

Edit: well I actually did, but I think there is quite a difference between "AI is cheating" and "the AI is perceived to cheat"... Which was the point of my post.

Irony.

Re. Injuries, there are a lot in this game. I understand there are times IRL where teams have injury crises but in this game I regularly get players out every week for 5/6 weeks or 6/7 weeks or 2/3 months. I think the problem is the length of time out through injuries more than the volume of injuries.

Re. Injuries, there are a lot in this game. I understand there are times IRL where teams have injury crises but in this game I regularly get players out every week for 5/6 weeks or 6/7 weeks or 2/3 months. I think the problem is the length of time out through injuries more than the volume of injuries.

That happens IRL as well, only IRL you have injury setbacks/managers not knowing how long a player wil be out. IRL you'll see a headline like "Gerrard out for 2 weeks" and 2 weeks later "Gerrard suffers injury setback. Will return in 2 weeks"

In a lot of my saves, I go thru extended periods where my entire first team and rotational players are completely healthy. This rarely ever happens IRL.

It's your tactics

Confirmation bias.

BTW it completely baffles me that people still think they are supposed use the same tactics, not make in game adjustments, and keep getting the same results. Likewise, the same people usually think that the AI isn't supposed to change tactics, make in game adjustments, and pull off upsets. It's almost as if these people have been so disconnected from the real world that the don't realize tactics that always work are phenomenon reserved for FM.

Huh? But you don't need to make in game adjustments or change your tactics to win the majority of games... >.>

Those things don't happen to me but I do have good success though, so maybe my tactics are just "kinda good" rather than "great"?

Or perhaps the OP is flawed, because with "great" tactics you would be better at defending set pieces, not give away so many penalties and finish chances rather than hitting the post.

Sorry to break it to you, but football doesn't work this way all the time.

Has nothing to do with the ME. If you saw a 3d representation of a rubbish player scoring a wonder strike how would that change the perception of the AI cheating? The OP didn't even mention the ME. Like I said before, the problem is with human players thinking the game should be a breeze. Look at injuries for example. Everyone complain that their are too many injuries in the game the second their team gets hit hard by injuries. The fact of the matter is team get decimated by injuries regularly. I would even say that there are not enough injuries in the game b/c SI knew how much people would complain. If you people really feel they're being hard done by the AI just save often and restart every time you feel you've been cheated. It's better than creating pointless thread b/c you lost to a side you feel you should beat.

Lastly, in all my years of reading this forum and playing FM I have yet to see any evidence that the AI cheats human players.

Irony.

Umm, the rubbish-player-scoring-on-a-fantastic-effort-after-a-magnificent-(rubbish) team-move thingy IS the perception of the AI cheating. The important word here is "perception", not "cheating". I think I need to explain this more schematically for you to understand the implications.

The player team, Team A, is a quality team throughout. Being on a winning streak for a while, complacency sets in, making the players lazy and unconcentrated.

The AI team, Team B, is a rubbish team throughout. Being on a losing streak for a while, they have very poor morale, no self-esteem and thus won't play to their potential.

Using their usual tactic, Team A tries to attack and dominate the game.

Using their usual tactic, Team B tries to park the bus and grab the few chances they get.

... so far, everything is normal yes?

So when the match starts, what we see in Key Highlight mode is that Team B runs faster, tackles more incisively, passes more accurately, and makes better decisions - they are passing team A out of the park in quick, precise team moves where Team A isn't even present on the pitch, and then their 25 match 2 goal striker blasts the ball into the top corner from 30 meters.

... while this, like virtually anything in football, -can- happen, this is a game with a limited amount of end results calculated by the ME. The input is, as said above, a complacent top team facing a bottom of the league opponent trying to launch counter-attacks - so the ME should show just that. But too often that is not what happens. In the above example the ME doesn't show my team being complacent but the opponent being fantastic! In other words, there is a discrepancy between the input and the output which puts into question the relationship between the tools we have to work with (player attributes, tactics and morale management), and what is actually happening on the pitch.

In real life, most of us will be passive observers when our favourite team is playing matches and being real life we'll just have to accept that things didn't go the way we wanted. FM is a game, and in games our actions are supposed to influence the outcome. Hence, if player attributes don't matter, our tactic matters less then the opponent's tactic, and our team's good morale matters less than their bad morale (or the AI ignores bad morale), then why should we play this game? What's the point? Now, I don't mean to say that this is actually the case, but lots of SI customers perceive it to be so, and threads like this should therefore be taken seriously. The important word in "perception bias" is perception, not bias.

About the Match engine, I came across this review at Amazon when I did a "fm 2012 match engine freak mistakes google search"

As an example of the limitations being referred to, take a look at the match engine. It hasn't changed in donkey years and the AI has become so linear it's a joke. E.g. the AI actually cheats by scripting mistakes and poor performanes into your team/players to give the impression that the AI is countering your tactics like a real life manager would. The AI doesn't have the ability to form genuine counter tactics, or exploit weaknesses in your tactics or lineup - you just end up losing games because the game has decided you will. It's gotten to the stage where having good tactics and a well put-together team with great individuals means alot less than it used to in older versions of FM/C.

The match engine itself also has players in specific positions doing the same repetitive motions, no matter what your instructions or what their abilities, because those specific positions are scripted to play a certain way. For example, you'll never see a centreback dribbling forward past 5-6 players like Lucio or Beckhenbauer (or even big Sol Campbell at one time) used to, no matter how much you tell them to, so if you somehow managed to get a cultured and gifted attacking defender, those attacking abilities are useless within the game. Same thing applies to many other positions, e.g. fullbacks. The Cafu's and Roberto Carlos' in real life don't exist within the match engine as fullbacks only play one way. This is all because the game is stuck with a match engine from 5+ years ago that they've only incrementally updated, and won't really make major changes to.

source: http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B005HGG006

So basicly the FM2012 match engine is like the total war series battles where the AI get's stat bonusses to counter the humans brain (depending on the difficulty you choose), and in FM 2012 gets scripting bonusses, or bonusses in the calculating fase that decides who wins and by how much before it actually shows the game.

Every game cheats you know, and I can understand a certain degree of it, but the mistakes your players suddenly make after a while are just too blatantly obvious

I would also like to add that this is a GAME, it's suposed to be a fun entertaining distraction from the horror that real life is during these troubled times, when I play a GAME I want to forget about my mundaneness, take my favourite team and live out an against the odds glory scenario, wich is why I painstakingly improved my squad, my tactics, my staff etc.. spending hours and hours scouting for staff and players, studying manuals on the internet about training and wich attribute relates with wich attribute, forgetting eat because I'm perfecting my team, badly sleeping because I'm thinking about improving my squad in my bed etc... only to find my team performing worse due to many many many "freak mistakes" and finding out about potential abillity caps, scripted events, march engine calculation etc...

This GAME takes more work than attaining my bachelors degree and taking care of my daughter and managing the household combined and it's frustrating because it's suposed to be a GAME, a safe fun refuge from the horror that is life

I have to tend to agree with that review and some of the others on there. You will get HIGHLY criticized by the FM has nothing bad about it lovers on here though.

About the Match engine, I came across this review at Amazon when I did a "fm 2012 match engine freak mistakes google search"

source: http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B005HGG006

So basicly the FM2012 match engine is like the total war series battles where the AI get's stat bonusses to counter the humans brain (depending on the difficulty you choose), and in FM 2012 gets scripting bonusses, or bonusses in the calculating fase that decides who wins and by how much before it actually shows the game.

Every game cheats you know, and I can understand a certain degree of it, but the mistakes your players suddenly make after a while are just too blatantly obvious

That review was clearly written by yet another sore loser who is in the minority.

The majority of people understand that the game has got harder over the years and don't start whining every time they lose a game.

Whoever wrote that review has no idea how the game works and that should be completely ignored. The ME does not distinguish between AI and human, until people accept that this silly notion of the AI cheating will always be around. The game never decides your going lose no matter what is changed.

There is a very good reason why the forums are not completely full of threads complaining about the AI cheating, because a lot of us have been around the game long enough to know its not true and we actually listen when advice is given. Wwfan should be giving a nobel prize for the amount of effort he puts in trying to help those who have no to very little clue about the game, even when they fire off abuse when they are told their tactics are rubbish.

You concede from virtually all set pieces given away in the final 3rd of the pitch.

The opposition will always win the ball in the air from attacking corners scoring very often.

You give away many more penalties.

Circa 90% of all goals conceded come from set pieces or own goals.

You'll hit the woodwork more times in just a few games than most teams do in a season. They'll even bring this stat up in post match press conferences bless their little cottons.

Can't say I have encountered all of this but a few I have.

Hitting the woodwork...yeah, this has been a "problem" ever since FM09! The amount of striking the posts are way over the top and I can only assume it's either a bad coding that still hasn't been fixed, or it's created so you don't score too many? It's not uncommon that my team alone has about 2-5 hits each and every game, thinks it a rarity to ever see zero in the match report.

Conceed from own goal...yeah, noticed a increase of this in FM12 no doubt. Especially own goals from goalkeepers. There a re quite a few over a season and I'm only thinking of my own keeper. This is actually part of the woodwork hitting problem. As it usually strikes the woodwork and off of the keppers back and into goal.

Not sure I would say the AI is cheating, but I would rather think the game has some serious flaws.

Been around the game long enough? What are you on about!? I've played the game consistently in all it's formats since 1992. I have to say, the way the tactics are translated couldn't be further from football if it tried. The closest the game came to realism was years ago when you had to position your players in accordance to where the ball was on the pitch when in or not in possession, phase of play. I agree, I may not understand the game as well as others, there is a reason for this, the instructions to get my team to do what I want are backwards! Look at the tactics in the download centre, they are ridiculous yet very successful! Some of them are so unreal. I think the developers have tried to go too in-depth and have in fact lost all sensibility. I would definitely go back to phase of play. I'm UEFA 'B' qualified and this game does confuse me. It needs to be simplified and give you better direct instructions as a team ON and OFF the ball. I think the tactics and instructions and how they determine how your team/individuals behave are lost in translation and don't represent football.

I have 3 tactics I use with 3 different formations, you know just like Manchester Utd, Chelsea, Barcelona etc etc do all the time (sic).

Apologies if anyone has pointed it out already, but you don't seem to know the correct use of "sic".

It's supposed to be used when quoting, to acknowledge that any errors are in the original script. So let's say you wrote "Your a fool", incorrectly using "your" when you mean "you're". I would then quote "Your [sic] a fool", showing that error was in your original script, not a transcription error on my part.

Happy to help!