[GUIDE FOR NEWBIES] How to create your own tactic in Football Manager

From the author

Everything written here is just my personal opinion.

I don’t thrust down throat to anybody and don’t suggest this one as a pure truth. It s possible that this guide won’t help you inasmuch as you hope. I can hardly understand the FM “inwards” as well as football IRL, cause I often prefer the rugby ball instead.

Football Manager is the PC game which is attempted to real life football approach. An even in the nearest his game will not display the 100% real life.

The object is to help, inspire and mobilize people to create their own FM tactics and bring guys who use just any except their own features to reason.

SPECIAL FOR skintsaint

The most essential thing here. Reread this one several times if your memory is sux)

It is not an aid book or science research for Football Manager 2009 – this is a padding or waffle. You will be able to read just basics of the tactic creation. All that features are typical not for the certain release but for the hole FM “line”.

First steps

First of all, it s worth to realize, recall or remember that the patience is the huge support in achievement of beneficial effect in every undertaking.

By the way, the patience can be substituted either by pride or sports rage. The competitive spirit is not something strange for you if you play FM. Thus you don’t mind to put down one more win like the creating your own tactic.

Once more you should realize, recall or remember that FM is just a game and like any other game it doesn’t have much similar things with real life.

So let sleep calm the phrase like “This can’t happen in real football”

First things you should keep in your mind are the concepts of “tactics” & “strategy”

Tactics is kinda the choice of the behavior line you need.

Strategy is the mean to achieve an objective.

Strategy like the mean of activities becomes necessary in situations when you don’t have enough resources for the direct achievement of the main objective. The aim of strategy is the effective using of the resources you have for the main objective achievement. Tactics is implementation tool of strategy and it obeys its main target (tactics usually comes from strategy). Strategy gets the main objective by the solution of intermediate tactical problems at the course “from resources to the target”. As well strategy relates to the practical activities area and appears just in practices. So the strategy stands like an art where the science-stategy acts as a tool and the strategy-man is like creator.

There are short-term (perhaps around a season in FM), medium-term and long term strategies. Each one of them can obtain their own tactics.

Can you feel the difference?

To keep your brain in safe conditions let’s replace strategy by “objective” and tacktic by “tool”.

The easiest way to determine the objective is the choice of a club you are going to be in charge in. So there are super-clubs, medium-liners and crap-clubs (for sure you are gona make it super-club but we don’t care that here).

It s your right to make the aim and the tool(s).

Also you should understand another of basics:

“A good tactics is not perfect offence scoring 10-15 goals or perfect defense that hasn’t considered any”

Get ready for 2 points pretending to the pure truth nomination:

1. A good tactic is the balance between offence & defense.

2. The only measure of good tactic is score on the board.

Introduction.

Offence or defense?

Here are some general opinions:

1) Everybody chooses what they prefer

2) They say defense is easier-built then attack (Building is more difficult then destroying)

3) The best defense is offence and till my team has the ball the opponent won’t be able to score.

(my opinion as well)

In practice we can see that the side which makes the opponent over to its “rules” obtains the result quite often.

Players over tactics or tactics over players?

One more eternal football question we have here.

And the answer is really easy. Let it be the 3rd pure truth peace =)

3. Cadres or staff are all-important

You are lucky if you have resources for new players. The pleasant choice between Aguero & Ibrahimovic or even Eto’o hasn’t ruined the World yet. If only you your funds are quite miserable then crosses with the winger with Crossing skill=5 to the Striker with Jumping=1 would be your best decision.

The conception like best using of particular player comes with practical training.(I mean your own FM playing and using the particular player also by yourself)

Isn’t it worth to pay more attention to tuning the player inside the current pattern? For me it s necessary to train any player

General tactic or tactic set?

The last trends of FM series showed us that the team using the single tactic and squad has more stable results. So I find it expedient to have at the disposal the general tactic

General tactic in my opinion is the tactic you start playing with. And you surely can edit it properly according to the field actions. These changes generally deal with players (e.g. moving them to more offensive or defensive position) or with changing team’s or players’ Mentality, Tempo, Time wasting, Focus passing in certain moments.

Q: How can you play with just 1 tactic? AI hacks and deals with it easily.

A: I have kept the general tactic for lots of seasons, and just made small changes before the season start (season by season with stable team level). However my changes were far from basics(something from Team Instructions or Set Pieces area)

In any case the choice is yours

Step-by-step guide

STEP 1 – The choosing of tactical formation

Everybody knows main formations because they have been invented for long time ago. You can see the FM formation set in Tactics -> Standard Tactics. You can choose it either by your preferences or opponent resistance or even player position factor, etc.

STEP 2 – The team instructions setting

You can easily find them in Instruction -> Team Instructions. Here you can see around 10 sliders and some other settings.

The last warning: Everything you ll be able to read below is my personal interpreting and description of settings!!!

All that adjustments influence the actions of all players as a team in one form or another.

They say settings like Mentality, Creative freedom, Passing style, Marking are worth to adjust for the team generally. At any rate you shouldn’t be too much enthusiastic over personal instructions especially in the first instance and e.g. setting unique mentality for each position. Before the experiments you should research special tactic guides which can be found easily at every FM community.

Mentality

It s like the general instruction for the match (part of the match). To attack or to defend *_*

I recommend leaving this slider in central position so far. And sooner you will choose the style of game you prefer.

Creative Freedom

I can say it is an allowable level of team’s breadth on the pitch. You should also leave this one alone at once.

Passing Style

The preferred style of passing that will be. Don’t forget that all actions in the game strongly depends on the level of certain player skills. This slider allows to set lots of options. The main ones should be:

Short – short passing;

Mixed – so called “mixed” passing means that in current situation the player handling ball is free to make any passing decisions.

Direct – direct or straight passing. For instance defenders directs their passes mostly to midfielders and they in the turn to forwards. This is so called attribute of vertical football.

Long – passes of maximum length. You should remember that player can pass just to partners he is able to see, if only everybody is marked then he acts according to his skills and abilities.

Tempo

Let it be the tempo of ball movement between players. It s worth to understand clearly that passes also suppose fast uncovering so players would try moving rather fast at the field if you set high tempo. You can read about the combined using of tempo and passing style in other guides. High tempo also requires high spending of physical conditions (recommended for players with high Stamina)

Width

This is a space between players in line. The more this slider turned left the nearer players in line (e.g. in defensive or midfield lines) try to hold on the pitch. For example if you prefer wing attacks you d better to turn the slider a bit right. But remember that unfortunately this setting is for the whole team so your defenders will also play widely so there would be more chances for opponent’s cutting passes. You ought to find the balance for that setting between offence and defense.

Closing down

Pressing. As for me a player tries to find and “press” opponent targets for shortest time after loosing the ball (personal or zonal one it will be according to the setting). There are some variations:

Own Area – players start active closing down at their own penalty area.

Own half – moves the active pressing zone to the whole team’s side.

Whole pitch – pressing appears at the same moment with loosing the ball. Get players with high Workrate, Bravery, Aggression, Decision & Tackling for the effective total pressing.

Time wasting

In brief this one can be either offensive or defensive feature. Time wasting can be addition to the high tempo in attack. As for defense it could be useful for finals of the halves for time killing. One more effective using is the opponent tempo breaking and destroying strategy as well.

Defensive line

The deepness of defensive line position. Left position will make them to act mostly nearer their gates it will be useful for slow defense in case of fast opponent’s attack line, although the offside trap effectiveness would be decreased. Also you should pay attention to your defensive midfielder (using of 2 DM suits as well) because opponent could use handling balls in the air when your midfield line would be far away from the struggle area. As for right position the defense line will getting nearer the center. This one includes the benefit of offside trap, but in case of their fails you keeper has to be keen in one-on-one.

Tackling

The tackling frequency & aggressiveness

This sliders has just 3 positions:

Easy – when players’ tackles are quite rarely. They prefer waiting for opponents’ mistakes in handling the ball.

Normal – here you’re the tackles will appear up to situation and your squad members’ skills.

Hard – As soon as they see opponent player with the ball your guys would try (with influence of Bravery & Aggression) to get the ball.

Focus Passing

It is the passing direction in brief.

Mixed – the direction is chosen up to the current moment.

Down Both Flanks – players generally pass to the flanks (left or right – up to the view)

Down Right/Left Flank – so here you can see the separation of the flanks passing choice.

Through the middle – players prefer passing through the middle in general.

Marking

This choice will set selected option to the hole team (you can surely change it in players’ personal instructions)

Zonal marking – players keep just opponents situated in their sticky zones.

Man marking – it is most effective for full backs (I strongly recommend you to set the person to mark before every match) and for defensive midfielder (in case that one of opponent’s attacking midfielder is rather dangerous).

Target Man Supply

Target man’s ball provision it will be.

Mixed – up to the moment.

To feet – recommended for target men that not good in heading or e.g. when you choose it a CM/AM for playmakers’ role reinforcement.

To head – after frequently crosses. This setting is the best for using good tall striker as a target man.

Tight Marking

Your defenders try to be as close as they can to opponent players they mark. It is very effective when the defender has rather high Bravery & Aggressive skills and the marked player has low Pace and Bravery.

Use Target Man

This setting allows using target man selecting from the list in Instructions ->Target Man.

If the list is empty then it supposed this option like disabled.

Use Playmaker

So if the player don’t know the way to develop attacking action the ball would generally be passed to the playmaker. You can select playmakers in Instructions -> Playmakers.

Play offside

This setting allows catching opponents in offside trap.

You need defenders for high Positioning and Teamwork skills for useful traps and one of your central backs should be “Commanding Central Back” with rather high Influence.

Counter Attack

Team will be always ready to move to counter attack. For efficient using you will need fast offence.

Below these setting you can see the Set Pieces area.

Corners.

Mixed - player is free to direct the corner anywhere he wants.

Short – (requires a player with “Offer Short Option” in Set Pieces->Corners->Attack) To mark this player up you should set Defend Close Down Corner in Set Pieces->Corners.

Near Post - ‘s cross or low cross to the near post

Far Post – is a cross to the far post.

Penalty area – player fires the cross wherever he wants in the penalty area.

6-Yard Box – cross directs to goal box.

Remember that corner taking depends on Corners skill. You can find the player taking corners list in Instructions->Corner Takers. If the list is empty then corners are took by the player with highest Corners skill. I strongly recommend you to fill this box in advance.

Free kicks

Mixed – the choice is up to the player.

Short – (required the player with Stand with Taker role in Set Piece->Free Kicks->attack). The game engine prefers this draw rather rarely. Stand with Taker is more useful in case of unlucky cross so you have one more player in offence.

Long – kind of long draw (without any other options [???]).

Cross Near – fire a near cross (especially to the near post)

Cross Far – the long cross to far post.

Cross Center – the center cross to the penalty mark mostly.

Best Header – the corner taker mark to the highest Heading/Jumping skill player.

Instructions->Free Kick Takers – is the list of players taking free kick takers. You should add players with high Free Kick Taking & Long Shots there for the kicks from high distance.

Throw Ins

Mixed – this is kind of random option.

Short – should be the short throw in the ball (to the closest partner)

Long – should be the long throw,

Quick – player throws in the ball to partner as quick as he can.

The list of all throw in takers you can fill in Instructions->Throw In Takers

The last bookmark in Instruction area is Penalty Takers

This one is very important so don’t be lazy ass and fill it the maximum penalty takers. You should filter players for this list by Composure and Penalty Taking skill (first one is the most important).

STEP 3 – The personal instructions setting

There are captured instructions for some positions in game. Just choose the player in Team Instructions so you got the Personal Instructions area

You ll see Set To bookmark above with options:

Goalkeeper

Sweeper

Central Back

Full Back

Wing Back

Defensive Midfielder

Attacking Midfielder

Midfielder (Central)

Winger

Striker

Target Man

Before the setting personal instructions I strongly recommend to have a look at that captured instructions. This slows you to understand which instructions are worth to use for your own players one or another position.

Goalkeeper Personal Instructions

(I ll miss the description of instructions identified with team ones. I m just gona recommend a bit )

There are suspicious keeper researches in any community so perhaps you should explore them for deeper understanding of this question.

Mentality – I recommend to stay the team one.

Creative Freedom – let it be as a team one or less.

Passing Style – it s up to your preferences (although the short one will be safer for ball holding)

Closing down – will be nice at deep left option.

Tackling –are worth to be Easy therefore you don’t need penalties and red cards for keeper.

Forward Runs – (the frequency of times player runs forward supporting attack) you should stay it in middle.

Run with Ball – (how often will player run with the ball) the deep left position will suit.

Long shots – (just the long shots frequency) you should choose the deep left again.

Through Balls – (the frequency of cutting passes) I recommend to move the slider left

Cross Balls (how often player s gona cross the ball) you should choose left position either.

Cross From – The place where cross is going to be fired from with options:

Mixed – depends on the cross-man, Deep – it s crossed from deep of the field, Byline – crosses is going to be from the byline.)

For goalies I recommend the left position.

Swap Position – is a temporary position swap with selected player

DO NOT TOUCH THIS SETTING FOR GOALKEEPERS.

Distribution – it s a mean of ball entry. Mixed – up to the keeper’s mood, Quick Throw – should be a quick hand throw, Long Kick – is a long leg punt, Defender Collect – might be playing it with the closest defender. Here you are able to choose everything you like.

Distribute to – keeper gives the ball every time to the selected player (in practice it doesn’t guarantee that the selected player would get the ball even if he isn’t marked)

Free Role – so this is free positional option. DO NOT TOUCH IT FOR KEEPER.

Hold Up Ball – the keeper is going so keep up a ball a bit to allow your offensive player move to the middle and get the better position combining this option with Long Kick Distribution (the most useful option for target man)

Set Piece – activities in corners and free kicks. I recommend use default option before the reading of additional materials about this feature.

“Fieldsman” Personal Instructions

I can see 2or 3 sides I m gona mention here.

The first one is the total choice freedom. I mean that the most part of sliders stays at the team instruction or default positions. It s the best way when you have experienced team.

In the way #2 you should make legible instructions or ultimate instruction personalization. It s good choice in case you have weak tactical-prepared or strategy-prepared team. This allows leveling some disadvantages in training (e.g., if your side midfielder has Crossing 5 and Passing 10 it is better to forbid him making crosses)

The way #3 called combined one. It s worth to betake it in situations like:

a) Some of your squad’s positions are weak;

b) There a leader (midfielder or forward) and you wanna build your play style around his advantages.

So you need instructions like these:

Mentality. You should be careful with this slider and leave it in advance. The best and easiest way is to stay this tick disabled.

Creative freedom. Our colleagues set the deep left position for defenders quite often so they don’t create mistakes mostly. In brief the experiments with this slider are not the safest.

Passing Style/Closing Down/Tackling/Forward Runs/Run with the Ball I should stay for your preferences.

Long Shots (Прим Alidance I guess it s worth to set it often to players with high skills of Long Shots)

Through Balls – experiments are allowed although you should remember that such passes can be wasted quite often moreover the such-a-pass-giver is required in your team in any case.

Cross Balls/Cross From/Cross Aim – is up to you.

Swap Position. In this case it is topically for forwards (this confuses defenders moreover when they are with weak physical or tactical skills), side midfielders (please, remember about the ability of player at another flank and preferred foot), central defenders (if only they are kinda equal and I m quite sure that this allows the best “jumper” to cancel out crosses and the best “runner” to neutralize cutting passes)

Free Role – should stay up to you preferences but do not misapply. There is a special Free Role position and I recommend to use this setting mostly for players with the one

Hold Up Ball. It ought to be useful for central midfielders so this can allow team to move to the attack (for slow team the preferences should be at positioning attacking)

STEP 4 The set pieces.

I just want to consider at set pieces absolutely and irrespectively.

And now I m not gona enlarge on philosophical reasoning about long-standing changes.

Personally I suggest that instructing for players about set pieces exert influence on their actions in game (I mean basic game situations). For example, if winger has “Attack Far Post” instruction then at the cross or low cross from outside the box flank area the player runs directly to the far post. As well if central midfielder has “Lurk Outside Area” option then he is likely to stay at the penalty box line. So you can watch the unproved method of positioning offence by this not quite sly way. If only your opinion is at the opposite side from mine it is worth to spend some time setting players instructions for corners and throw ins. It will better your slot in future.

So there are some personal instructions in Set Pieces of each of its kind:

Set Pieces Defend Free Kicks

Default – player acts as he wants (as his skills allow)

Go Back – making the character to join the defense.

Stay Forward – allowing player to stay in attack

Man Mark – marking opponent player. You can define which exactly in personal instructions.

Form Wall – player set by this option form the wall (if the wall players limit is off character acts as he wants)

Stand On Near Post – moving players’ actions closer to near post.

Stand On Far Post – player defends far post.

Set Pieces Attack Free Kicks

Default – player acts as he wants (as his skills allow)

Stay Back – making the character to stay in defense.

Stay Back If Needed - the needed option is situated at the classic formula (the quantity of defense offense players equals to the quantity of defense players plus one

Go Forward – allowing player to support attack

Disrupt Wall – player tries to make wall useless (closing keeper’s view or trying to open the hole for direct kick)

Mark Keeper - player tries to trammel and detain keeper.

Stand With Taker – player stands with kick taker (if you assign more than one player here they would stay approximately at the same position)

Set Piece Defend Corner

Default - player acts as he wants (as his skills allow)

Go Back – making the character to join the defense.

Man Mark – marking opponent player. You can define which exactly in personal instructions/

Mark Near Post – player station himself at the near post (toward taking corner place)

Mark Far Post – player stands at far post.

Mark Tall Player – your team member marks any of opponents’ high players

Mark Small Player - your team member marks any of opponents’ small players (I can hardly tell you how these chooses work in certain)

Close Down Corner – player moves closer to corner place (he stands there in spite of the short option has chosen by opponent)

Set Piece Attack Corner

Default - player acts as he wants (as his skills allow)

Stay Back – player doesn’t support attack at corners.

Stay Back If Needed – the needed option is situated at the classic formula (the quantity of defense offense players equals to the quantity of defense players plus one

Go Forwards – making player to support the offense actions at corners.

Attack Near Post – running (player starts the acceleration approximately 1-2 meters till the 6 yard box line) to near post (toward taking corner place).

Near Post Flick On – player runs to near post.

Stand On Far Post – this option makes your squad member to stand and wait for ball at far post.

Stand On Near Post – player stands at near post.

Attack Ball From Deep – players stands between penalty box line and penalty mark before the cross and at the moment of that he starts moving and struggling for best position.

Challenge Goalkeeper – offense player tries to trammel and detain keeper.

Lurk Outside Area – player situates a half or meter till the penalty area.

Offer Short Option – moving to short option of corner (further actions develop up to player skills)

Set Piece Throw Ins (Left/Right)

When opponent throw in the ball your team defends up to general defending instructions.

But when throw in is yours you can set these kind of options:

Default - player acts as he wants (as his skills allow)

Stay Back – making the character to stay in defense.

Come Short – partner moves pretty short to the taker.

Lurk Outside Area - player situates a half or meter till the penalty area.

Near Post – player runs to near post.

Forward – your team member goes to attack

Do not forget that if you set “Come Short” everywhere for your left wing midfielder then at he would have to move the hole pitch to the right flank of your defense

STEP 5 The Summary

After the creation is complete it worth to watch the instructions you set one more time and try to analyze if there are mutual contradictions. In brief, you should try to understand what influence your instructions exert in real life (at that moment it is not important at all how it would work in game).

STEP 6 The first matches and further

I strongly recommend you to play your first games after creating new tactic model at Extended or Full Details. This will help to understand clearly how your team acts at the whole match long not only at the highlights you can see in other modes where you can hardly understand the reasons of unsuccessful playing. However the watching is not enough. You have to look closely for each of your team’s player (what does he do right or wrong, etc.)

You must be patient because you will unlikely see everything that the team is able to do at the first matches especially at the first days of your career at this club.

If only after 5-6 friendly matches are ok for you then your next evolutions and experiments upon this tactic you should make with reserves.

There are many advantages of this method. Starting from the main squad keeps on getting used to the current game model and upon the balance between your reserves squad and the other ones will help to analyze other your tactic’s disadvantages.

Next step should be arranging the friendly with super-club or even certain match with it at continent competition.

This match allows to watch how your tactic works versus strong opponent with high-skilled players. I recommend you to save before the match like this and play it several times to understand your squad activities better.

Epilogue

Tactical examples

- At defend corner You can stay a forward and two wingers in attack so it will allow you to hold 3 or 4 opponent defenders at central area. It s critically that AI stays 2 central backs which plays good in the air. Moreover it can allow to organize fast counter-attack in case of take-over.

- To make all defenders to stay at the central line area you should set them Default option. Four defenders at the back is almost 100% guarantee that opponent will not able to organize fast counter attack in case of your unlucky corner.

- Pay attention to opponent’s cards. If the side back got a yellow you would better to increase the attack tightness at his flank. So there are two ways of doing this. First ways is to move your most powerful side midfielder to that flank (for objectives like this you should make your wingers to learn other side position), and the second is to change Focus Passing option. In case that your defender or midfielder (who tackles too much) got a yellow then you should substitute him (you must have the universal defender or defensive midfielder at the bench for that).

- It‘s really useful to have “Joker’ or a player who recently scores coming off substitute. Although finding him is a difficult task but this will better your lot for sure.

- Remember that you are the coach and your main task is the team’s result. So if only a squad member is playing BADLY you'd better substitue him off even if he is one of your leaders. The only exception is the captain with very high Influence and Determination. A player like this is really able to compensate his mistakes.

Opponent directed game or preparing to the match.

Even if your creed is the number one game and intrusion your initiation from the first seconds of match it wouldn’t ever be odd to spend some minutes to research your opponent.

The things you should pay attention:

- The keeper’s Rushing out ability (crosses, cutting passes). If it is low you d better to cross & use cutting passes more often and long passes to target man’ run as well.

- Goalie’s Eccentricity. Although you can read in guides that this skill is in charge of just non-standard action you can make sure in practice that exactly keepers with high Eccentricity catches their “wave” quite often and saving everything. You should remember about denying the warm-up for keepers like this.

- After you ll be able to see the starting squads you should have a look to every opponent’s defender. Perhaps one of them is weaker than the other so his zone must be overweighed by your attacks.

- Also research opponent’s forwards (for fast and high you should set personal marking and deep defense respectively), and your defensive midfielder should mark the opponent’s main midfielder.

- You d better to find out the type of field (narrow or wide, short or long). You shouldn’t use flanks at the narrow arenas like JJB Stadium (Wigan Athletic).

- Find out the weather forecast. If the field is in very awful conditions you mustn’t use low passes and whole pitch pressing so not to spend all players’ conditions before the whistle.

It’s always worth to remember (once again you should read this 3 time before sleeping if you have bad memory)

Football Manager is a game. The series has 10 years history and even for this time the game creators haven’t ever explained what exactly any of changing in slider’s position makes. Is it right or wrong? – The question for long discussions. Perhaps advantages in that way doesn’t come short of disadvantagies.

Tactic can work good in current tournament but this doesn’t guarantee its working (even stable result) in another.

As well if tactic is successful in current version it doesn’t guarantee its success after new patch/version.

Farewell.

© Scoles, Alidance (FMFan.ru)

Wow! So nice! Good job!

Thats just a wall of words to me and i cba reading it lol sorry.

Thats just a wall of words to me and i cba reading it lol sorry.

likewise i gave up two paragraphs in. surprised i read that much!

well done shevelevee for your concise & worthy piece, that im sure will help a lot of people. to the ignorant.... why dont you try & help a fellow F,MRG,,its nice to be kind.

rick59

May be there will be "add-on")

Creative Freedom

. . . team’s breadth on the pitch.

I thought creative freedom was just like it sounds -- the higher it is, the less the player has to stick to your tactics.

I love the way you write in English, btw. I'm not joking. Surprising phrasing like "So let sleep calm the phrase like “This can’t happen in real football”" just tickles me.

very good.

load of old waffle

doesnt explain much at all.

I'd suggest that those who are dismissing this piece out of hand should take a long, hard look at themselves and their contributions to the forum. Here we have some guys taking the time to translate their ideas into a second language in order to help people come to terms with the FM tactic module. They are not trying to boast or show off, just to help, and it is extremely rude to dismiss it without trying to read it through. With a little thought all of their ideas are accessible and useful. You might not agree with them all (and I don't) but to not bother to read it but bother to tell us you haven't is a poor attitude and turns these forums into a nastily xenophobic little England. If you don't want to read it or find it hard to, then don't, but don't bother telling us either. It unnecessarily undermines their hard work and dedication.

My disagreements with shevelevee and his friends have run into pages and pages of discussion but at no time have I felt myself to be superior because my English is better. I spent time and effort debating with him because he has a lot to offer and it is always worthwhile reading what he has to say, whether you agree or disagree with it. I hope he and his friends continue to take the time and make the effort to post in English, because their contributions make the T&TT forums a richer and better place.

I have found it an interesting read and I am sure I have learned a thing or two from it. Just one little correction the absence of which might cause confusion:

"So if only a squad member is playing so you d better to substitute him even if it is one of your leaders."

I think it is supposed to be "So if only a squad member is playing BADLY you'd better substitue him off even if he is one of your leaders." i.e. Add the word "badly".

thx wwfan, just I think that if there will be not only TTF ideas, it will be better for tactic forums in overall)

thx WoIfsong, first post edited

thx wwfan, just I think that if there will be not only TTF ideas, it will be better for tactic forums in overall)

thx WoIfsong, first post edited

I agree. The more ideas, the better it is for everyone.

Looks like it could be useful, haven't read through it all yet, as it seems a very long post, but just a quick skim-through looks like it could be very useful for a lot of ppl

Thanks for good words.

Once again to those who didn't get the idea: this is help for new players.

For sure, it'll be useless for experience players.

nice OP very useful to me

Some of the replies to this thread are shocking. I personally would see no problem in having those posters banned from posting in this forum. Threads like these generate discussion that is helpful to all, and replies like some of those above discourage people from taking the time and making the effort to post indepth about the tactical aspects of this game. This is to the detriment of every user of these boards.

All it takes is a couple of abusive posts and people that write what is worth reading refuse to contribute any further, whether they are the subject or merely an observer. This kind of thing should be nipped in the bud instantly and never be allowed to go unpunished or continue unrestrained.

When mister luddite lacks the intelligence to figure out the repercussions of his words, he should be taught.

Is it a good guide for newbies though?

Most people would say no, some people need to relax and realise that a bit of banter is part of the forum.

If it's a nasty comment then fair enough but its a bit of taking the mick and having a laugh, lighten up or people won't be able to say anything without fearing a slapped wrist from moderators or people who would love to be a moderator.

I don't think banter is the same as telling someone what they've done isn't worth reading. As I said earlier, if you can't be bothered reading it then don't feel obliged to comment.

Given this thread is a year old and for FM09, I think we've probably gone as far as it is worth going with it. If shevelevee wants me to re-open it I shall, but I see no purpose continuing as is.