dafuge's FM16 challenge

The Aim

To take a small club who were previously unplayable in an unedited game from the Vanarama National League North/South to Premier League and Champions League glory.

The Rules

This year allows a bit more freedom in the game setup, you have the option of loading whatever leagues you like at the start and throughout the game. As for the 'advanced option', all of the boxes should be left unticked apart from 'do not add key staff' and 'prevent use of in-game editor'. It should look like this.

Just like previous years, the players for the newly playable clubs need to be added which can be done using the 'advanced' option on the database size. The players from the three feeder league have to be added, which looks like this. You can also add anything else you like to increase the size of the database, for example like this.

The extra levels of detail that you can change while in the game are up to you, as they shouldn't make a difference.

Add yourself as an unemployed manager, the details are not important at all. I like to call mine 'Holiday Man'.

Go on holiday until 24th June. This is the day that the new clubs appear, so saving on 23rd June gives you a chance to reload in the hope of getting a particular club.

Retire your 'Holiday Man' manager and allow him to ride off into the sunset.

Add a new manager, the personal details are completely up to you but I would expect people to use their own true nationalities and languages spoken. Coaching badges must be set to 'None', with past playing experience set as 'Sunday League Footballer'. The coaching attributes are completely up to you.

When adding a new manager, choose one of the new clubs promoted to the Vanarama North or South to manage. A quick way to check the new teams is to find the 'England Overview' team, then the 'season summary'. Just above the FA Cup summary you should find a list of six new teams.

They should appear in this list which shows the reputation of the possible clubs. The reputation should act as a difficulty level. The lower the reputation, the harder your game should be.

Ryman Football League Premier Division
Billericay         1550
Bognor Regis       1650
Brentwood          1200
Burgess Hill       1300
Canvey Island      1600
Dulwich Hamlet     1800
East Thurrock      1400
Enfield Town       1350
Farnborough        1850
Grays              1450
Hampton & Richmond 1650
Harrow             1300
Hendon             1600
Kingstonian        1700
Leatherhead        1250
Leiston            1250
Lewes              1600
Merstham           1250
Met Police         1350
Needham Market     1250
Staines            1550
Tonbridge          1700
VCD                1050
Wingate & Finchley 1250

Calor Gas League Southern Premier Division
Bedworth           1100
Bideford           1100
Biggleswade Town   1150
Cambridge City     1600
Chesham            1450
Chippenham         1450
Cirencester        1250
Dorchester         2100
Dunstable           950
Frome              1100
Histon             1650
Hitchin            1250
Hungerford         1000
Kettering          1950
King's Lynn        1550
Leamington         1650
Merthyr Town       1300
Paulton            1150
Poole Town         1050
Redditch           1650
Slough             1300
St. Neots          1500
Stratford          1000
Weymouth           1600

Evo-Stik League Northern Premier Division
Ashton Utd         1600
Barwell            1450
Blyth              1700
Buxton             1550
Colwyn Bay         1700
Darlington 1883    1750
Frickley           1450
Grantham           1500
Halesowen          1500
Hyde               1600
Ilkeston           1600
Marine             1500
Matlock            1500
Mickleover         1400
Nantwich           1500
Ramsbottom         1350
Rushall            1550
Salford            1650
Skelmersdale       1550
Stamford           1450
Stourbridge        1500
Sutton Coldfield   1400
Whitby             1500
Workington         1700

It is now up to you to manage this club all the way to the Premier League title and UEFA Champions League crown. The challenge is complete once you have won both competitions, this does not need to happen in the same season.

You may not move clubs unless you are sacked.

If you get sacked, you can either take over a newly promoted club that satisfies the original criteria (check the club's league history), or just start again.

Any form of international management is not allowed, until you have completed the challenge.

Assigning parent clubs and loaning players is completely up to the player, although it should be noted that on occasions a parent club can lend players which will make the first season or two slightly less of a challenge. It is completely up to you how you play this one. Personally, I like to assign a parent club for financial benefits but never take any players on loan from them.

To sign a player, you must be able to scout them, this doesn't mean you have to, just he must be accessible to your scouts. If you have a foreign player on a free transfer who is willing to come on trial, you do not need to be able to scout them, as long as you have them at the club on trial so you can get a coach report on him. If an agent offers you a player, you can sign him without scouting him.

No external utilities such as scouting programs should be used and the database should be unedited (with the exception of cosmetic changes which cannot be discussed here). Should SI release a data update, this would be allowed but any other data updates are not.

Use of save game editors is strictly banned, whatever the reason. Ticking that box at the start should see to this.

Rules for this Thread

Player naming is allowed.

General discussion on tactics is allowed, although people should not refer to downloaded tactics. They are not banned, but I would expect the majority of people to avoid them.

When you join the challenge, post a screenshot of your manager's profile on the 24th June like this.

Progress of your club should be documented using this thread, we want to hear the story of your club all the way through. Please keep us updated, even if you are doing really badly.

At the end of every season, could everyone post some kind of season review, including at least a screenshot of a league table and the clubs transfer page. If you give this a title in bold it makes it a bit easier to pick out.

How to Post a Screenshot

• While in FM, press Alt and F9
  
• A picture will be saved to a screenshots folder, in the FM16 folder in your documents
  
• Upload the image to an image hosting website such as Imgur
  
• Post the direct Url to the image here.
  

How to Add Links

At the top of the forum, go to 'Settings' then 'General Settings' (on the left). At the bottom, select 'enhanced interface' and save the changes. This will give you access to the extra posting tools that make it easier to post links. Once you've done this, highlight the word you wish to turn into a link, then use the link button (looks like a little globe) to paste in the direct Url to your screenshot.

Enjoy

Let it begin!!!!

I would guess that very few reps have changed, looking at the club reps (given in stars) for england. Methyr Town for instance is just below Met police which corresponds with the reps above.

Got Chippenham fairly quickly reload wise! only about 150ish reloads!

New Manager of Chippenham Town FC

Anyone know where I can get logo and kits?

Anyone know where I can get logo and kits?

These are great, although they are from last season.

Same goes for these kits.

These

are great, although they are from last season.

Same goes for these kits.

And in wich map do we have to put them? Never done this before.

Thanks in advance.

And in wich map do we have to put them? Never done this before.

Thanks in advance.

They go into mydocuments/SI/football16/graphics folder on your computer. Bring up preferences when in game, untick caching and tick reload skin. they should appear and then retick caching.

Thanks Thebaker.

set up with the british and irish leagues to provide more competition for signings. Hoped for Methyr to come up but they look too low in rep so have gone with Colwyn Bay.

Profile, changed the appearance a bit rather than go with the standard look which looks scary!

These

are great, although they are from last season.

Same goes for these kits.

Amazing thanks!

Decided to start with Colwyn Bay since it came up on the first load and is just up the road from me. I'm gonna try and see if I can have some success using a good old fashioned Little 'n' Large 4-4-2 ala Heskey and Owen (poacher and target man) with a nice dollop of Pulis style hoofball thrown in, will make a change from trying to force pub league players to play tiki taka football.

Profile

Just started up with all the leagues from England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Spain, Germany and Italy. The British ones to provide more players for the neighboring countries and the others to provide more competition in Europe. Holidaying at the moment.

I'll get this posted nice and early this year so it doesn't get lost in the middle of the thread somewhere.

This is how I start the challenge off, if anyone is new or struggling at the start, though it's not the only way to do the challenge and is based on FM15 information as I haven't really had a good look at FM16 yet:

- When picking a club Reputation, facilities and stadium will effect how difficult the first few seasons are - the better these items the (slightly) easier it will be, with facilities and stadium generally affecting how much money you have in the early years as rubbish small stadiums will need more money spending on them to meet league rules. Region also plays a part, if you pick a club based in the north west you'll be able to attract players from Manchester not London and viceversa. The other thing to consider when taking off a team is their kit colours make sure you pick a team who's colours you can read easily.

- Also a quick way to find the promoted teams is to run the holidayman bit before adding any custom logos as most if not all conference sides should be licensed, so the newly promoted sides will be the ones with the default generic logos.

- Once I have picked a club the first thing I do is sign the assistant with the best judging ability attribute possible (potential is nice but not as important, I also find tactical knowledge helpful for the OI if you use them, other attributes depend on what you want your assistant to do) also try and sign a quality scout if possible again you want the best judging ability you can get, with potential a nice one if you can get it.

- For coaches it depends on how many you can have, if you have the numbers I tend to go for a GK and fitness one - though if you can try and sign them as general coaches so they can still train anyone, then I use me and the assistant for general coaching. You can also 'cheat' a little bit by signing coaches with good judging ability and use them as extra scouts, as at this level training isn't going to do much and the more accurate scout reports you can get quicker the better.

- Ask for a Parent club (or senior affiliate as they now seem to be called) for free loans - depending on how the game is feeling you might get some free first teamers or at worst have to settle for some free bench players which can at least save you some money. (the ability to get parent teams and the quality of loanees seems to change each version, hopefully this will be a nice one)

- Pick your basic preffered formation (4-4-2, 4-3-3, 4-2-3-1 etc...) roles and duties don't matter at the moment, though have a general idea of what you want, for example I tend to play 4-4-2 and in the centre of midfield I'll have a defensive minded player and an attacking minded one, and upfront I'll have a goalscoring (hopefully) and a support striker - though actual roles depend on my players and what works.

- Go through your exisitng players and work out their best position, also check your U21 and U18 squads incase anyone decent is hiding in there. Use the Report and Squad Depth screens, I also add some extra columns to the squad view - Ability and Potential columns, you can also add best position and role columns if you wish. This year we have some new columns in the tactics screen - a role rating column that seems to give your assistants star rating of the role, and a green bar chart that seems to be based on the average of the key attributes for the selected role - at this level I'd probably use the green chart rather than the stars.

- Pick your Best XI and Second XI from your existing players, this now allows you to see where you are weakest, also check for any AI made future signings, I think the squad depth screen has a filter to include future transfers, you may have got lucky and had the AI grab you a good player.

- Check the Contract Offers view on the squad screen to see if the AI has offered any of your players a new contract, and cancel any offers you don't want, also check the expiry dates of the contracts as some players may only have a week left on their contract.

- Before making any offers for players you need to check a couple of things to see what standard of player you are looking for, a quck glance can be had by looking at the Team Report -> Comparison screen, this will give you the highest and lowest averages for various attributes in your league per position, in the Conference North 10/11 is normally good for a key attribute. Next from the player report screen check to see what level the stars correpond to - players will have a star rating which will change depending on expectations, quality of players and league, however players also have a description that doesn't change which will read decent/good/leading and then a division, you need to keep on an eye on what level the stars are at, as for example at the start a decent conf north player may be five stars as your team is rubbish but a month later may only be two stars as you have found better players.

- Now it's time to find players, what I do is filter by interested players within scouting range, and add conditions unattached and eu-national (you aren't likely to attact players from other clubs at this stage nor will players get work permits at this level) and then add a position filter and search for the position you most need a player in.

- Next step depends on how many players you found and what staff you have, you have two options;

- Trial players in - reveals all attributes, once on trial can compare with other players, downside players may not accept trial and it also seems players on trial attract more attention from AI players. If trialing do it for 1 month/end of pre-season. (Though I think trialling was changed in one of the patches for FM15 and no longer reveals attributes instantly, but is still an alternative to scouting)

- Scout players - limit to how many you can scout, new system takes time, however no need for player to agree terms, can also get coaches to scout if they are any good.

- Once you have scouted/trialled players for one position move onto the next, if you have the staff you can assign one member of staff to scout players of one position whilst another scouts a different position.

- If you scout a player and still aren't sure trial him in, you can use scouting to weed out the useless players and then trial in the possible ones to have a closer look.

- If there is no interest in a player then trial him in and take your time, unless he looks really good.

- Priority is first team players squad depth isn't important yet and can be filled with free loans or non-contract players.

- Once the season is under way carry on searching (transfer window doesn't close until march in non-league) as better players will be interested as the season goes on. (free players get more desperate the longer they are without a club).

Tactics wise keep it simple and if not sure where to start check out the tactics forum - there are some stickied threads to help you understand the roles and how they are linked, otherwise it's just watch the matches and slowly tweak things depending on what is happening.

The first season I tend to write off - you have to build a team, understand the new features and work out a tactic, if you are lucky things will start coming together at the end of the season and you may sneak a playoff spot or if not be in position to push for promotion next season.

In your second season you should have a better idea of what you need and what works, I also tend to have a core team by now and just look to add some players with that extra bit of quality.

Once you have gained promotion you repeat all of the above, until you gain promotion again and repeat the above again etc...

Getting quality players in the early years is part luck part how much time you have - to find the gems you may have to scout/trial thousands of players which takes time (both real and in game), you also cannot always rely on poaching players from other peoples games as at this level most of the released players we are after have random attributes and have had a season or more to develop/fail.

Another way to narrow down players on your scouting screen is to add the last club column to the view and first check out the players released from bigger sides (unfortantely there is no column to show what division the side was in). You can also check the transfer history for clubs (or even england) for released players and scout them and hope that you can persuade a quality released player to sign for you.

Another cheeky thing you can do at the start is look at the reserve teams of the prem sides and scout the ones who's contracts are expiring (or get a team report) because we start a week before the contracts expire and in the past AI teams haven't looked at these players until they have been officially released, so you might get lucky and be able to snap one up before the AI gets interested.

Just a note on that great post there, bringing people in on trial doesn't seem to reveal all attributes now, it just decreased the range for me.

Just a note on that great post there, bringing people in on trial doesn't seem to reveal all attributes now, it just decreased the range for me.

Pretty sure that was in FM 15 too.

This is my profile and I'm the new manager of Weymouth

Alright! I've holidayed and reloaded a bunch to get my favorite team from the lower English levels, namely Cambridge City! My profile and information.

The first thing the board did was to approve my request for a coaching badge. This is a nice board, I like this board.

I'm in

New manager of Salford City

Just doing a quick holiday through on the beta to test some things and by November Mourinho has been fired with Chelsea bottom of the league though van Gaal has for some reason taken the job even though Utd are third...

EDIT: Just noticed they also interviewed Moyes for the job

What leagues have people decided to load? Staying with just England or loading up others?

I've gone with the classic set-up 2 games in with Dulwich Hamlet.

I'm in with St. Neots. My Profile.

I selected all European countries top division as View Only. And all levels for the top 4 nations (France, Germany, Italy and Spain) plus UK/Ireland leagues. Figured it would make it more of a living world and add spice to the end game.

I liked the St Neots badge and that they had average youth recruitment and average training facilities, so I chose them over Cambridge City, which was my second choice. I couldn't find their kit which is a pebble in a shoe, but hopefully something shows up.

I'm allowed to scout this nation but this seems to include wales as well as england which is a bonus, is anyone else able to scout wales?

Well, this is promising. A narrow loss to a championship side is a very good sign for the season, although they battered us we fought well.

I'm allowed to scout this nation but this seems to include wales as well as england which is a bonus, is anyone else able to scout wales?

Well, I can't chose Wales as a nation to scout in. After a google search I found out that Colwyn Bay is actually located in Wales, so that might be the reason you can scout there

Im finding my feet with a Camb Utd save but i will likely delve into this challenge this weekend. As ive just moved to norfolk, im thinking Kings Lynn . My last two efforts have been Bury Town and Dulwich Hamlet.

back in the game daf

07 Whitby

08 heybridge Swifts

10 horsham

12 Corby

14 Bedford

Weve never done this all the way thru but am back in for 2016 with Lewes as its the game I love to come back too. Hoping to see couple of old faces jimbo, paul hartmen and the likes all still playing

and will see how we do. Game loaded ok but laptop and pictures is not a good combo.

Just holidaying to the 23rd June, going to get a tiny bit done tonight with any luck.

Hoping to get out of the conf regional without getting through 5 clubs on the way this time!

Anyone use Facepacks at all and if so whats a good one? Hate having the silhouettes for players

An a trip back to my home county is in order.

Meet the new manager of 'ricay ....

Just time for a quick look around tonight

For those that want to jump right in, I'm going to provide another group of saves for the FM16 challenge as I did last year. Hopefully I'll turn up some of the more obscure teams again this year as I did last year. I'll start with a batch of saves from the Demo --- when full release comes out I'll do another couple batches. This first batch is from the Demo, with only the basic setup (no extra players added -- just the basic UK setup with a large database (roughly 10K players). The next batches include additional players from the continental competitions, and trend as high as 60K players).

DEMO batch (roughly 10K players)

(numbers in parenthesis at end of each line indicate number of discrete teams encountered)

Save 1: Darlington 1883, Tonbridge, Ilkeston, Dorchester, Staines, Weymouth (6)

Save 2: Farnborough, Dorchester, Salford, Hendon, Nantwich, Redditch (11)

Save 3: Kettering, Farnborough, Kingstonian, Dorchester, Colwyn Bay, Salford (14)

Save 4: Kettering, Farnborough, Darlington 1883, Hampton & Richmond, Ilkeston, Cambridge C (16)

Save 5: Dorchester, Farnborough, Kettering, Hendon, Darlington 1883, Salford (16)

Save 6: Dorchester, Workington, Colwyn Bay, Lewes, Canvey Island, Histon (19)

Save 7: Dulwich Hamlet, Workington, Kingstonian, Kettering, Darlington 1993, Dorchester (20)

Save 8: Dulwich Hamlet, Darlington 1883, Hampton & Richmond, Histon, Hyde, Learnington (21)

Save 9: Blyth, Tonbridge, Buxton, Hendon, Chesham, Kettering (24)

Save 10: Dorchester, Kettering, Blyth, Hampton & Richmond, Dulwich Hamlet, Stourbridge) (25)

For those with a machine that is capable, the following saves (also from the Beta) have roughly 100K players loaded, having run the holiday with 18 European leagues loaded. You can always turn some leagues off after finding a save you like.

Save 11: Kettering, Dulwich Hamlet, Kingstonian, Dorchester, Skelmersdale, Grantham (27)

Save 12: Kettering, Hamton & Richmond, Salford, Farnborough, Cambridge C, Colwyn Bay (27)

Save 13: Kettering, Dorchester, Salford, Hamton & Richmond, Hyde, Dulwich Hamlet (27)

Save 14: Dorchester, Blyth, Dulwich Hamlet, Hampton & Richmond, Cambridge C, Nantwich (27)

Save 16: Salford, Workington, Kingstonian, Dorchester, Bognor Regis, Redditch (29)

Save 17: Kingstonian, Ilkeston, Farnborough, Salford, Dorchester, Chesham (29)

Save 18: Kettering, Dorchester, Darlington 1884, Dulwich Hamlet, Skelmersdale, Staines (29)

Save 19: Kettering, Dorchester, Farnborough, Skelmersdale, Blyth, Billericay (30)

The following saves are from 16.1.0 release day and feature approximately 45K players (All of England, + International + Continental players):

Save 101: Dorchester, Kettering, Dulwich Hamlet, Tonbridge, Blyth, Workington (30)

Save 102: Farnborough, Hampton & Richmond, Workington, Dorchester, Kettering, Ilkeston (30)

Save 103: Blyth, Dorchester, Farnborough, Workington, Kingstonian, Cambridge C(30)

Save 104: Darlington 1883, Kingstonian, Farnborough, Dorechester, Kettering, Rushall (31)

Save 105: Farnborough, Tonbridge, Workington, Blyth, Histon, Learnington (31)

Save 106: Dorchester, Kettering, Hendon, Blyth, Tonbridge, Stourbridge (31)

Save 107: Kettering, Ashton Utd, Bognor Regis, Blyth, Learnington, Tonbridge (31)

Save 108: Colwyn Bay, Redditch, Dorchester, Skelmserdale, Kingstonian, Dulwich Hamlet (31)

Save 109: Kettering, Dorchester, Kingstonian, Hendon, Salford, Colwyn Bay (31)

Save 110: Farnborough, Hampton & Richmond, Cambridge C, Colwyn Bay, Dorchester, Halesowen (32)

Just a note on that great post there, bringing people in on trial doesn't seem to reveal all attributes now, it just decreased the range for me.

Pretty sure that was in FM 15 too.

It was fixed in the...December patch, if I recall. After I complained to the dev's in late beta (as did others, I'm sure!)

Now's a good time to mention the Dafuge challenge / steam chat group. Usually on a new release it gets quite popular, with upwards of a dozen people around a good portion of the day. There's still 4 or 5 hanging out regularly that have been around the room throughout the FM2015 run. Stop by and chat about your save! http://steamcommunity.com/groups/dafugechallenge

Here goes another go at this years challenge!

Gray this time. Profile One Two

Good luck to all!

Now's a good time to mention the Dafuge challenge / steam chat group. Usually on a new release it gets quite popular, with upwards of a dozen people around a good portion of the day. There's still 4 or 5 hanging out regularly that have been around the room throughout the FM2015 run. Stop by and chat about your save! http://steamcommunity.com/groups/dafugechallenge

Why look at that, I'm still a member of the group. I should probably join the talking.

Here goes another go at this years challenge!

Gray this time. Profile One Two

Good luck to all!

That's some profile picture You shouldn't have much issue motivating players to do well for you at least!

Was hoping to do this with bury town this year but it appears they were relegated last year!

Back to the drawing board then

Enjoyed my best FM save ever last year with Hereford. I will join again, though I might wait untill the game is not beta.

Anyone use Facepacks at all and if so whats a good one? Hate having the silhouettes for players

This one is great.

Signed up and have chosen St. Neots, here's my manager profile.

Alright i'm in for the long haul this year... hopefully. Here is my profile : http://i.imgur.com/UxGB8et.png?1

I'm a couple of months in at the moment sitting 10th with a predicted finish of 19th so all is going smooth and dandy atm.

P.S anyone else getting a fair amount of injuries ?

Anyone tried Salford? Do you get the 'class of 92' experience? Could be a good save with them putting money into the club and trying to become the top side in Manchester

Determined to complete this, this year. My best so far was the Championship with Dover on FM09

This year I sit here as manager of Halesowen Town. Attempting to become the best club in the Midlands (not too difficult!)

Profile

Good luck everyone!

Torn between who to start as.

Anyone tried Salford? Do you get the 'class of 92' experience? Could be a good save with them putting money into the club and trying to become the top side in Manchester

I just signed with Salford. I noticed my wages seemed a bit high, considering the league and my experience. Transfer budget as well, which is set at $248K (sorry for the Yankee numbers). Almost feels like cheating, but I am notoriously terrible at this challenge, so I think I'm going to stick with them.

I was going to start with the San marino challenge this year, however the edited local league wont be out for awhile so going to give my annual dafuge challenge a crack

I have signed on as manager of Bognor Regis. Heading to bed now, but ready for a good game tomorrow!

Think a lot of people will be watching "Class of 92" with Salford in the mix this year. Wonder how it plays out in-game with the Singaporean owner, he's also in charge of Valencia.

5 games into the season and things are going very well for me. We have won 4 and gotten one draw so far with my VERY basic 4-4-2 formation and without many players in. I haven't been able to get much better players in so far, due to the fact that scouting seems to take much longer this time around. If I get a simple report I usually only see a range on 3-4 stats and the rest are completely unknown. While this takes some time to get used to I like it. I'm really enjoying FM16 so far!

Out of curiosity could this be played using FM Touch (Classic?)

Just I struggled with time for FM15 so am seriously looking at this mode for FM16.

Out of curiosity could this be played using FM Touch (Classic?)

Just I struggled with time for FM15 so am seriously looking at this mode for FM16.

Is it possible to load the players from the three feeder leagues on that version?

Is it possible to load the players from the three feeder leagues on that version?

I have not checked yet (only installed late last night) but I doubt that.

Never happened in god knows how many years but going to try for the Met Police once again. Probably won't happen though .