How do you play FM?

I have been a CM/FM fan for years but around FM13 life changed quite a bit for me (my twins were born!) - all of a sudden FM time was taken up and i would have to snatch hours here and there but never really got back to the days of immersing myself in a save. And when i say 'immerse', i really mean immerse!! My managerial habits involved almost micro-analysis of players, clubs, cups, countries and regions (sad! i know).

My attempts to get back in to the game in recent months whilst balancing work/family life also has shown me the previous habits need kicked. Unfortunately i don't actually know how to play the game outwith this method i have but i read on here of folk who seem to fly through seasons with success and enjoyment.

So my question is fairly specific and i appreciate it may be difficult too answer but here goes - how do folk who tend to play the game with such speed do so without losing the enjoyment and detail the game has too offer? Do you spend more time on Match Day trying to influence the result but fly through the parts in between or vice versa?

Any tips to help me recover my FM habit at a manageable level in the context is appreciated.

Cheers in advance

Try FMC, makes it more possible to get through seasons. And I usually play with more established clubs than I used to. I can really recognize the situation you are in with family priorities first. That is how life should be:) But I reckon I soon can play the game together with my son.

If a lack of time is an issue & you can no longer dedicate hours to a single session that only progresses half a season then FMC is probably the game for you. The down side is that FMC places much less importance on micro-managing in fine detail so if that's what you enjoyed the most then it might still be difficult to rediscover the enjoyment you once had unless you're willing to give up something else to allow more FM time.

It's a decision we all have to make as we get older, my solution was to get a job at SI . Unfortunately even that came to an end as I had to move back to the industry that will pay me a lot more now & in the future.

I play FMC exclusively.

I have dipped my toe in the FMC world but got frustrated when i wanted to do something and realised I couldn't

Kids give me way more enjoyment than FM but i just need to develop a slicker way of playing classic and change my micro-management habits

I float between the two modes.

One thing I like about FMC (btw I'm still on FM14 tho have pre-ordered FM16) is the absence of "managing people" i.e. team talks, player chats etc. Why? Because I intensely do this in my day job with sometimes difficult teenagers, and awkward adult staff who I line-manage.

I think SI were spot-on with this omission for FMC - because that's what I want to escape as a grown-up professional, sometimes at least

Sounds like we might have similar jobs

I am really interested in the player development aspect of the game eg tutoring, learning PPM's etc and love working through this in my saves - does FMC allow you this level of detail?

If you like to immerse yourself, carry on immersing. Just accept it'll take you longer than it used to to play through .

Personally, I tend to focus more on set up. It takes me ages just to hit Continue for the first time in a new save.

I then try to focus on the parts that interest me, and gloss over the rest. My Inbox gets filled with all manner of items I barely glance at. My monthly backroom advice meeting takes me as long as it takes to press the up arrow to zoom through the reports. But I do take my time over team set up, training, scouting, talking to the board, that kind of thing. I even attend all of my press conferences. Oh and playing matches .

Of course, if you want to go to the extreme of immersion, you could always play FM in real time like here https://realtimefm.wordpress.com. It'll take you a year to play each season, but you'll have plenty of time for your family .

Sounds like we might have similar jobs

I am really interested in the player development aspect of the game eg tutoring, learning PPM's etc and love working through this in my saves - does FMC allow you this level of detail?

You can't control tutoring but do control PPM training. FMC (now FMT) gains OIs and prozone for 2016, so it's going to be perfect for me, another long term player with a couple of kids.

FMC is your friend. Great for dads on the go (like me). Really helped me during newborn years!

For FM16 I am going back to full FM mode - like what herne79 said above, I am just accepting that my save is going to take considerably longer now as a dad. Luckily for me, I have an understanding wife who is allowing Friday nights and at least one weekday night dedicated to FM

It's easy enough to play full fat if you nail the tactics and squad/staff allocation during pre-season. Then you can just blow through the season, only 'microing' when there's a visible problem either with the tactic or with individual players. The more experienced you are, the easier it should be in theory to identify such issues.

Microing aspects of the game is only one method of playing the game, I know some of the gurus here like doing that, but for me, that just makes things excessively tedious and time consuming. Not to mention, it isn't fun for me. That said, I still take at least a week or two to get through a season, I know some people on here blow through it in a day - probably switched the highlights off and zoomed through it pretty much.

FMC is ideal if you lack the time to do the full fat version. I have always preferred full fat and tried FMC once to see what it was basically, but i couldnt stand it. Too much "missing" for my liking, compared to full fat

FMC is ideal if you lack the time to do the full fat version. I have always preferred full fat and tried FMC once to see what it was basically, but i couldnt stand it. Too much "missing" for my liking, compared to full fat

Me too. Plus I absolutely hate the FMC skin.

I've done everything from ultra-slow to relatively fast full-fat saves, so the range is pretty big there. It's all about how you approach it...

I also have 2 kids and it was hard to balance playing games and everything you do with the kids, my youngest is now one and a half so the midnight feeds and changes have stopped which gives me time at night to play.

I tried FMC but it just wasn't for me, I need the full game.

The kids are in bed by 8pm and the wife goes and watches the TV and I do my own thing, I normally get around 3 hours of gaming time at nights, the only time FM slows down is in July and August, I get my tactic set out and buy/sell players, after the window closes I rarely change anything in my tactic, just changing injured players and clicking my way through the weeks, I watch the highlights speeded up a bit, I would say I get through about a season and half in a week.

Years ago I would spend a lot more time searching for players, even in October I used to search through entire leagues looking at all the players, I don't do that now as that would just eat away at all my playing time, I let my scouts do that for me during the season and in maybe in January I search for players that will be out of contract at the end of the season and in June/July I start doing some searching again.

It's certainly not what it used to be, the times when you started playing when it was just getting dark and decided it was maybe time for bed once the sun came up, those days are long gone!

I can totally relate to not being able to play as much as I used to, since I've now got two kids (aged 6 & 2), with the older one in school from this fall, and with all the other activities that comes along. Especially since the 6-year old just started playing football (the real-life thing, not FIFA 16, although he's tried FIFA and liked it..) and his nice daddy volunteered to be a coach... So the hours between the kids' bedtime and our own aren't that many, and my wife kinda doesn't really think it's a great idea that I should be sitting with FM all the time... So when I prefer the full version to FMC (or Touch as it will be known), I'm not as able to play the "everlasting" saves as I was before..

But still, it's the full FM that makes the deal for me.

Sometimes I think I'm the only one here with a real spouse and a real grown-up job...

Sometimes I think I'm the only one here with a real spouse and a real grown-up job...

I don't know, I am now a stay at home Dad and I am more tired than I was when I worked as a hydraulic mechanic, so I find that very much a 'grown-up job'.

Also after we have all eaten together and shared our day we put the kids to bed, my wife likes to watch some shows on TV, things I do not care for, I enjoy relaxing on my computer or maybe even on the PS4.

I am in the 'everyone deserves some downtime' camp.

I am just as bad though at judging people,

I have never understood why a guy has to sit with his wife at night instead of relaxing and doing what he really wanted to do.

Me and the wife both have tiring jobs and we both enjoy our own time at nights, not everyone is the same though.

Oh, please don't get me wrong, I completely agree with all of those points.

I guess I just don't understand how anyone our age (again, assuming) can play until 11 PM or even later and not be completely useless the next day. Certainly not if your kids wake up around the same time that mine do.

Maybe it's just because I'm a morning person...

Well at viewing your profile I am 8 years older than you.

Yeah same thing here, used to do the "one last game" thing and be up until 3ish and up for work at 7, but now, my own house, fiancee and 3 year old everything's changed.

My FM time has diminished and I'm part of a online Madden league so that takes up 3 hours a week too, FM gets squeezed in at times when the Mrs goes bed early or there is something on that she wants to watch. So my careers now last 4-5 years, rather than 20-30 and my scouting takes a hit, i miss out on players that I know 5 years ago I'd have found first. Match day moves quicker now and i've even gone back to 2D to see if that makes it go quicker as well ... life changes and we adapt

I will never completely drift away because in 5-6 years time, I want my son to play and we can spend hours on it and I can teach him tricks on closing the laptop under the bed sheets and pretending to be asleep when you hear someone going toilet at 3am and you should be asleep!

Well at viewing your profile I am 8 years older than you.

And old people need less sleep...

Walked right into that one didn't I.

I swera this thread pops up every 6 months.

With the laptop on and my eyes open.

mouse and keyboard works for me

I play FM during periods of leave, so end up months out of the year out of the Football Manager loop.

When I do play I hardly ever get past 5 seasons, always take over Man Utd and usually try and play the way they do in real life, which was fun under Moyes, before implementing my own style for season 2. When I do play its always the full mode, I have touched classic twice in its lifetime and never done any of the challenges. I play every match on expanded or full match and it can sometimes take up to a few weeks to complete a season, depending on real life. Sometimes I go really wild and sim the first 10 years before taking over....Man Utd. I treat it really as a Man Utd simulator and have done for 20 years.

Back in the 90s when the series was Championship Manager they had different versions for European leagues, I once had the Italy version as a birthday present. I didnt know who the hell to manage.

So my question is fairly specific and i appreciate it may be difficult too answer but here goes - how do folk who tend to play the game with such speed do so without losing the enjoyment and detail the game has too offer? Do you spend more time on Match Day trying to influence the result but fly through the parts in between or vice versa?

Read my thread: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/436460-A-confession. It sounds like you and me have been playing the game the complete opposite way to each other, and now we need to sample each others style of play

To answer your questions, I leave almost everything to my assistant and coaches - Training, Match Prep, Press Conference etc. The only thing I actually handle myself is the match day team selection and tactics, signing/selling players, contracts negotiations and developing youth through first team experience and carefully selected loans. I have the odd chat with unhappy players, but I almost always take the firm approach of "I'm in charge, I'll decide when you play, and when you leave the club." Been playing the game since Championship Manager 2 in this style and lose no enjoyments what so ever.

Although, as my thread states, I do want to try a different approach this year!

FMC is your friend. Great for dads on the go (like me). Really helped me during newborn years!

For FM16 I am going back to full FM mode - like what herne79 said above, I am just accepting that my save is going to take considerably longer now as a dad. Luckily for me, I have an understanding wife who is allowing Friday nights and at least one weekday night dedicated to FM

Id be very dissapointed in just friday nights and one weekday,my missus knows the score

The aspect of making the club your own in terms of vision is probably what is most important to me in the game.

Agree 100%!

I'm a fellow parent (little girl who is 7 today) Am quite lucky that I still get a fair bit of FM time in. I work part-time and once I've done the school run and housework, I can get a few hrs in and also at night/weekends. Wife is a teacher, so it's something to do when she's busy grafting at night. FM is still the only game I play and am interested in.

Yes - I am an addict.

I just love the instant results skins that people always make. I can put press interactions to my assistant and just focus on building my team, training and scouting. Yeah, I know so many hate to give up control of their teams games by using instant results but it certainly makes going through a lot of seasons work well for me. Plus I never feel that frustration of having to watch my team lose a frustrating game, though granted for some people this is what this game is all about, I just don't miss it.