Mechanics of Manager Reputation

[ZJ]

Originally posted by Morridin:

There was a possibility that you might have applied, got rejected without getting the message and then changed the value. Obviously slim, but you never know. If this is not the case then I am truly puzzled. Your data makes no sense... Maybe if there was a function which made you too qualified to get offered the job this might happen, but I've never had reason to suspect that you might be overqualified for a job. The team hadn't just been relegated to a lower division not in play by any chance?

Nah, they were actually on route for winning their league weirdly enough.

Being overqualified is an option, but surely I can't have been overqualified every time... I have no idea.

Can it have to do with the quality of the leagues? I.e. that its harder to go from a league with lower rep to one with higher? Although I'd say the Russian Premier should be good enough for the Italian Serie C2.

Maybe they look at win/lose ration? I didn't check that.

Do some similar tests yourself and see if you can confirm them.

[Morridin]

Originally posted by ZJ:

Do some similar tests yourself and see if you can confirm them.

Will do, as soon as I got time.

[crouchaldinho]

OK Morridin and ZJ - here is another strange business with international job applications... I apply to be manager of Senegal expecting to be told that I am unsuccessful yet again.

I was unsuccessful - so no surprise there. But the manager who beat me to the job was absolutely crap! It was another randomly generated manager (the threshold theory seems to hold firm here) but this time his stats are awful - 850, 850, 255. In comparison, my stats are great - 4365, 4283, 1750. Very strange. Seems to support the theory of the threshold though - I was automatically rejected because below a certain reputation value I guess.

I am currently based in England and I also recently lost out to a couple of jobs in Ireland. Sligo Rovers in the Irish Prem and Fingal in the First Division. The managers who beat me to these jobs have the following reps (respectively): 4327, 3642, 2303 (fair enough, I was beaten by the better man) and 3963, 3808, 1510 (I was the better candidate but perhaps lost out due to nationality - plus I was already at a club with a 1 year contract and thus compensation may have played a part).

Still struggling to build up a reputation. Have been linked with lots of clubs in League One but none have been forthcoming.

C.

[Morridin]

Originally posted by crouchaldinho:

I was automatically rejected because below a certain reputation value I guess.

And the eventual threshold value increases.

Ghana application, unsuccessful

Human manager

5069

5808

3046

Regenerated manager

3100

3100

930

Thought I should be famous enough by now...

Originally posted by crouchaldinho:

Still struggling to build up a reputation. Have been linked with lots of clubs in League One but none have been forthcoming.

There is a lot to gain from picking the right club. In my game I got the job of recently relegated Coca-cola league 2 side Hartlepool. Because they had been steady runners in Coca-Cola league 1 they were predicted to finish 2nd the coming season. This would be no problem as most of the players in the original team were given 7 stars in current ability by my new assistant, so I only made minor changes to the first team. Not winning the league was not really an option, and my team eventually won the league by 21 points. Currently half way through my first season in coca-cola 1 and history is repeating it self, as I'm in the lead with 10 points to go on nr. 2.

More will come in a big update as I finish this season, but the lesson is pick the winners.

[ZJ]

Hey again, sorry for the time away, been busy writing essays and watching the EURO's.

Anyway, haven't had time to do much research, but here is what happened during the season.

Start of season: 2873, 3640, 2421 and club 4397.

3 games before end of season: 3080, 3802, 2680 and club 4437.

End of season (finished 9th, an 1 place improvement on previous year): 3107, 3872, 2704 and club 4500.

Season increases: 234, 232, 284. Club 103.

Of this, aruond 20-25 was a jump due to league result for me, the club got a 63 point bumb which is lower than the 100ish I got the year before with a worse position. Seem to be indicating that its relative to reputation. The numbers for me is however slightly altered by the fact that I'm also the Cameroon manager.

Here is some additional information about that, I don't have the numbers though as I've lost that paper.

I won my qualifier for the African Cup of Nations, only got a small 5 point increase over 6 games. Not suprising given that the qualification is rather insignificant, against low rep opposition. However, the tournament itself will be interesting and that is my next thing to look at more closely now that I have time.

I did some additional tests, and here comes a important one: Do not lose international games, even friendlies! I manufactured a loss against Sudan. I saw a 25 or more point drop in my reputation. Similarly, I lost a friendly 1-3 against Mexico (a team with more reputation than me) and saw a 12-15 point drop over the board. I also drew 2-2 against the Czech Republic which increased my points 5 points or so. Hopefully i'll manage to get a win against a high reputation team to see what that does, similarly the WC qualifiers are coming up so if I can make it through that we can see the impact of a World Cup on reputation.

With regards to job hunting, so far only have had minor success with really small teams in leagues related to my nationalities. However, I seem to be getting Danish jobs quite easily so thought it might be language and/or knowledge related? As with a Scandinavian nationality language and knowledge comes with and thus it might increase the chance of getting hired?

I have another test on that coming up, as being the Cameroon manager has taught me French fluently so going to apply for all French jobs to see if I have any success with that.

Sorry for not providing much evidence, will hopefully get some good information in the future.

[ZJ]

Here is the stats for the African Cup of Nations (rep 13).

Before the tournament I had 3107, 3872, 2704. I actually went on to win the whole thing so only did a reload of the final to check what happened if I lost and to confirm if the rep increase for losers still holds. The numbers in parantesis is the increase from game to game.

4-1 Togo --> 3268, 3923, 2959 (+161, +51, +255)

3-2 Ghana --> 3368, 3929, 3127 (+100, +0, +168)

2-0 South Africa --> 3456, 3937, 3270 (+88, +8, +143)

QF 2-0 Ivory Coast --> 3547, 3959, 3407 (+91, +22, +137)

SF 1-0 Marocco --> 3581, 3959, 3470 (+34, 0, +63)

Final (win) 1-0 Ghana --> 5066, 5233, 5024 (+1485, +1274, +1554)

Final (loss) 3-4 Ghana --> 4480, 4721, 4419 (+899, +762, +949)

So the total increase in the tournament for a win was 1959, 1361, 2320. Although the the final was worth approx 3/4 (win) or 2/3 (loss) of the total value so thats the key really.

However, note the massive increases in World Rep over the first few games so just doing well there was very valuable. Seems like either that its relative to your current rep level or that the results from the score is greatly magnified (i.e. the 4-1 win margin makes for a much larger increase). Looking at the reps of the teams I played this seems likely and confirms the previous connection to odds.

Ok, got some more very interesting information coming up, but will save that for later as I've got to run a few more tests first to confirm it.

/Z

[crouchaldinho]

Originally posted by ZJ:

Before the tournament I had 3107, 3872, 2704. I actually went on to win the whole thing so only did a reload of the final to check what happened if I lost and to confirm if the rep increase for losers still holds. The numbers in parantesis is the increase from game to game.

Well done on winning the cup ZJ !

Quick question for you - it seems from what you have written above that you get quite a big manager reputation boost for getting runners up spot in the cup. Is this the same for all cup competitions or just the international ones? And does this also apply for the league, i.e. if you are runner up in the league, do you get the same significant reputation boost?

I'm currently involved in a title race and also in a cup final - just wondering how much I stand to lose in temrs of reputation if my team bottles it!

C.

[ZJ]

Well done on winning the cup ZJ !

Quick question for you - it seems from what you have written above that you get quite a big manager reputation boost for getting runners up spot in the cup. Is this the same for all cup competitions or just the international ones? And does this also apply for the league, i.e. if you are runner up in the league, do you get the same significant reputation boost?

I'm currently involved in a title race and also in a cup final - just wondering how much I stand to lose in temrs of reputation if my team bottles it!

C.

Cheers

According to Morridins experience in his league cup combined with the African cup results, it seems like a place in the final means you will get a rep boost (a relatively big one), no matter if the tournament if international or domestic.

However, for leagues it seems to be slightly different. A promotion will get you a rep boost, but finishing just outside that will basically only get you a minor increase (around 50-150). It also seems like becoming Champions gives a much larger increase than a 2nd place promotion when compared to cups, i.e. the runners up in a cup get about 50-60% of what the winner gets, but in leagues the other promoted teams will only get around 20-30% of the team that won the league, sometimes even less than 10%.

This may be connected to your relative rep as well, so if you get promoted with a team with a really low rep you will get a comparatively large increase and vice-versa.

So, for the cup final you are pretty set, you'll get a good increase from that although winning it is obviously better and in the title race, promotion is the real key.

/Z

[crouchaldinho]

Well, had a rep of 4680, 4431, 1974 built up over 5 years with St. Albans City (in BSS, BSP, L2) and 2 years with Derry City (Irish 1st).

So, I lost the Irish League Cup final (very low rep of about 3) and I didn't want to replay it for testing purposes due to the pain and suffering it would bring knowing what could have been. I still got a pretty decent boost up to 4778, 4527, 2006 - however, I also won a MoM award so that might have pushed it up too.

Good news on the league front (rep 7) which I won with a few games to spare. This took me up to 5970, 5689, 2599 - a huge boost, especially to my World Rep, which has really gone up due to my move to Ireland.

I am now hoping that some Championship club will come after me, or a second tier Italian, French or German club. I did get one job offer by a newly promoted second tier German club with a very low rep but turned it down due to their lack of playing staff.

Hopefully my rep will now be sufficient for me to push for a decent job. I'm trying to get to the top. I wonder if I might be able to get one of those elusive African international jobs now too? With improved world rep, I just might.

Fingers crossed.

C.

[crouchaldinho]

Just for your interest, I left Derry City at the end of the season with my manager reputation at the same level as in my last post (in game rating of 'National').

I waited until the next summer to get a new job and I was offered the following:

Luton Town (L2)

Leeds United (L1)

Birmingham (L1)

Cardiff (CC)

Leicester (CC)

Watford (CC)

I was turned down for jobs in the premiership but got offered most jobs in the championship.

I am also running Italian, French, German and Irish leagues.

I got offered several top jobs in Ireland.

Ligue 2 sides in the lower half of the table offered me jobs in France.

Only 1 or 2 very lowly Italian clubs were interested in me.

In Germany, I was generally able to go for some of the second division middle to top sides. The very best in the second division rejected me.

In the end, I accepted a job with Kaiserslauten in the German Second Division (rep of about 5000, which matches with the rep of the best clubs who were offering me jobs in England).

I think moving to Ireland might have helped with my world reputation, which was much lower when I moved to Derry City from St. Albans City. This might be the reason behind my success in being offered some of the foriegn jobs.

I realise this isn't exactly scientific testing

but thought it might be interesting for people to know what kind of jobs can be got with a certain level of reputation.

ZJ - when you got an international job with an African side (I'm sorry to say that I can't remember which one it was now) were you unemployed? Was your reputation similar to mine? I'm desperate for an international job offer now!

C.

[ZJ]

Originally posted by crouchaldinho:

Just for your interest, I left Derry City at the end of the season with my manager reputation at the same level as in my last post (in game rating of 'National').

I waited until the next summer to get a new job and I was offered the following:

Luton Town (L2)

Leeds United (L1)

Birmingham (L1)

Cardiff (CC)

Leicester (CC)

Watford (CC)

I was turned down for jobs in the premiership but got offered most jobs in the championship.

I am also running Italian, French, German and Irish leagues.

I got offered several top jobs in Ireland.

Ligue 2 sides in the lower half of the table offered me jobs in France.

Only 1 or 2 very lowly Italian clubs were interested in me.

In Germany, I was generally able to go for some of the second division middle to top sides. The very best in the second division rejected me.

In the end, I accepted a job with Kaiserslauten in the German Second Division (rep of about 5000, which matches with the rep of the best clubs who were offering me jobs in England).

I think moving to Ireland might have helped with my world reputation, which was much lower when I moved to Derry City from St. Albans City. This might be the reason behind my success in being offered some of the foriegn jobs.

I realise this isn't exactly scientific testing

but thought it might be interesting for people to know what kind of jobs can be got with a certain level of reputation.

ZJ - when you got an international job with an African side (I'm sorry to say that I can't remember which one it was now) were you unemployed? Was your reputation similar to mine? I'm desperate for an international job offer now!

C.

Very good work, this is directly connected to the very interesting thing I mentioned before (its coming in the next post).

It seems to confirm that moving around indeed increased your world rep, as it should and that it helps, I just changed clubs myself so I'll see if I notice that as well.

I got Cameroon, and no I wasn't unemployed. Basically all of a sudden a bunch of International jobs came up and I applied to them and got one. Keep your eyes open after the African Cup of Nations and WQ/Euro qualifiers as a couple is usually fired then.

Anyway, now moving on to the next post!

[ZJ]

Ok, this will be a fairly long post and I will get mixed up in my own logic so if there is any confusion, just ask. Apologies for spelling errors as well. There is some interesting stuff here though.

For a variety of reasons it became clear that my Russian club could not carry me further and I quit as it was April and thus loads of job openings around the world when leagues finishes (I'm running England, Spain, Germany, Italy, Russia, Scotland, Portugal, Holland, Belgium and Sweden on full detail to lowest possible league, most other major/minor European countries on view-only).

After only 4 days I got an offer, Padova in Serie C1. It was a step down in rep (12 for Russian Premier to 8 in C1) but the club itself made the choice easy. Secure economy, massive stadium, a not too shabby squad, 500k in transfer and a good sized wage budget. It was also in Italy, meaning there is some serious climbing possible. Its Rep is 3800, so a step down the 4900 I taken my former club to but still fairly good. I accepted the job and saved them from relegation play-out in the lat 4 games before the end of season.

However, I remembered that I had a save from about a couple of weeks before I quit the first job, so I got the idea for an experiment. After many reloads, the Padova job opened up in the exact same time, but this time I was still employed. Guess what? I didn't get the job... reloaded a couple of times, but never got it.

What can we learn from this? - There is a difference if you are employed or not.

This has 2 reasons, which I think both are valid.

1) Your under contract and you have to be paid. While this sum might seem small, it can be quite significant for smaller clubs and there is more to this as well, but I'll get onto that below.

2) When you quit your job, it seems your Current rep is static but ceases to be specific from the country of your club to being general, accessable to all nations you have loaded. This is based firstly on the fact that I got the job while unemployed but also on the news items that says you are being considered for jobs. While I was in Russia, I was never linked to any job but while I was unemployed I was linked with loads of jobs (supporting the theory that your current rep being more generic when you are unemployed). All of the jobs I was linked too was for clubs with rep below mine so no suprise there. After I accepted the Padova job, I was constantly again being linked with jobs all over the place (remember that my rep is still the same as it was when I was in Russia but never was linked with anything).

Interestingly, looking at the jobs I was being linked to there was a similar trend again that they were below my current/home rep but here I discovered an interesting thing. I was only being linked with jobs in the same nations - Italy, France, Germany, England and Sweden. The latter two is because thats my nationalities, but the first two is directly related to the almost geographical closeness. I've never been linked with the other nations (Although I think this will change once your world rep becomes high enough). There is also a possibility that the geograpic aspect is also related to knowledge of countries and/or relative rep of the leagues itself. It may also be that the jobs can only be in a band around your own rep, say at most +500 rep better than you or something like that - although this is just speculation that needs to be looked into more.

When combined with the following factors, it explain why I never got any offers in Russia:

Russia only have 2 leagues, so say 40-50 clubs and if you run it at full detail there is probably a larger database of managers than that, meaning that when it decided who to link with it is very unlikely that a human controlled manager will be in the top 4. However, if you are in different parts of the world, say England/Spain/Germany/Italy with several layers of leagues there is more clubs, i.e. more likely that the human manager would be on of the top 4 within the right rep bracket of what the club know it can get and hence the links all the time. I'm however so far not been actually offered a single job but more about that coming:

After this, I went back again to my save and resigned from the Russian team, went on holiday just to see the spectrum of teams that would offer me jobs if I applied. My reps is approx 5000, 5200, 5000. The jobs I got was up to around 90% of my rep, so 4800 although its still possible to get higher I would assume if you are lucky. The best teams I could get varied from low end Championship clubs to low end Serie B clubs. There was some discrepencies though, particularly being offered the Southampton job which at the time is a top CC club. Looking into this, I started checking the various factors and I found that there was a very stable trend between the chairmen of all the teams which offered me a job: They had a high value for Business, typically 14-20. Looking around, it made a bit of sense as my salery of my old club (£1200) was way, way below what other managers was getting in the same leagues. This ties into what I said before about contracts for managers effecting employment as Business-minded chairmen is less likely to hire you as opposed to when you are unemployed and "free". This obviously works the other way as well, if you are relatively really well-paid a business minded chairmen might not want you. Other chairman stats might thus also effect the hiring decisions and skew the process - Kipfizh's experiment shows some of this as well, that a incompetent board can't pick a good manager etc.

So if this is somewhat accurate, it explains quite a few things such as why you don't get certain jobs, why it can be hard moving from one high profile club to another (as long as you are hired, your current rep is locked to the country and whatever formula the game uses to compare you to other managers gives you a disadvantage), and why you never get jobs you are said to be the favorite of getting. I also found out a way of while being in game, legally, checking roughly what jobs you can get. Simple declare interest in jobs when the managers are under pressure and if the news item says anything else than its just you being desperate, you can get it. I tried this with the Padova job and it said I only had a outside chancing of getting it but I still got it.

Also, this can be wrong but it seems to be a higher turnover of managers when you are unemployed, over 4-5 reloads there is about 1.2-1.4 as many openings when you are unemployed as compared to when you are not. Could just be that when you are unemployed you notice it more but it makes sense though as it would be little point in having to wait endlessly to get a job.

Time to play again!

/Z

[Morridin]

Originally posted by ZJ:

Here is the stats for the African Cup of Nations (rep 13).

Before the tournament I had 3107, 3872, 2704. I actually went on to win the whole thing so only did a reload of the final to check what happened if I lost and to confirm if the rep increase for losers still holds. The numbers in parantesis is the increase from game to game.

4-1 Togo --> 3268, 3923, 2959 (+161, +51, +255)

3-2 Ghana --> 3368, 3929, 3127 (+100, +0, +168)

2-0 South Africa --> 3456, 3937, 3270 (+88, +8, +143)

QF 2-0 Ivory Coast --> 3547, 3959, 3407 (+91, +22, +137)

SF 1-0 Marocco --> 3581, 3959, 3470 (+34, 0, +63)

Final (win) 1-0 Ghana --> 5066, 5233, 5024 (+1485, +1274, +1554)

Final (loss) 3-4 Ghana --> 4480, 4721, 4419 (+899, +762, +949)

So the total increase in the tournament for a win was 1959, 1361, 2320. Although the the final was worth approx 3/4 (win) or 2/3 (loss) of the total value so thats the key really.

However, note the massive increases in World Rep over the first few games so just doing well there was very valuable. Seems like either that its relative to your current rep level or that the results from the score is greatly magnified (i.e. the 4-1 win margin makes for a much larger increase). Looking at the reps of the teams I played this seems likely and confirms the previous connection to odds.

First of all, great work ZJ! I haven`t made frequent contributions lately, partly because I just got a new job but mostly because i have discovered "Mass Effect". I am only a couple of games away from finishing my second season with Heartlepool however so a big update is just around the corner.

I note several things in these data.

1. Current rep increases from matches alone are close to negligible compared with Home and World.

2. World rep sees huge increases from matches, which makes sense for international games.

3. International match increases are less regular than domestic ones.

4. My observation that you have to reach the final to get a rep boost is confirmed.

5. Greater results are linked with greater increases in rep, which supports the odds theory.

6. Up and coming managers should definitely try to get an international job as soon as possible!

Originally posted by ZJ:

According to Morridins experience in his league cup combined with the African cup results, it seems like a place in the final means you will get a rep boost (a relatively big one), no matter if the tournament if international or domestic.

Indeed. All leagues I have played or seen data from, so far, follows this pattern.

Originally posted by ZJ:

However, for leagues it seems to be slightly different. A promotion will get you a rep boost, but finishing just outside that will basically only get you a minor increase (around 50-150). It also seems like becoming Champions gives a much larger increase than a 2nd place promotion when compared to cups, i.e. the runners up in a cup get about 50-60% of what the winner gets, but in leagues the other promoted teams will only get around 20-30% of the team that won the league, sometimes even less than 10%.

Do we actually have any numbers for finishing second? I know I have none.

Originally posted by ZJ:

It seems to confirm that moving around indeed increased your world rep, as it should and that it helps, I just changed clubs myself so I'll see if I notice that as well.

Hm, it`s logical that your world rep would increase faster when you play with a foreign club. I have not seen this pattern in my game though. Playing in England I have actually seen rep increases distributed very differently from when i played in Norway. The numbers will come later, but suffice to say that winning a league in Norway gave me increases in a 2,2,1 pattern, while winning in England gave me increases of a 1,2,1 pattern. I will make some data comparisons when I finish my season.

Your last post deserves it`s own response post, but first I have to do a little work. Stay tuned!

[DaveRH]

Morridin, based on the first page of posts I'd suggest that both the reputation changes and pre-match odds are calculated according to the ELO ranking system.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system

The differences in value depending on what competition you play in, or the relative value of the match would be attributed to a different K-factor (a weighting variable for want of a better term).

[ZJ]

Do we actually have any numbers for finishing second? I know I have none.

yeah, I finished 2nd in the Russian 2nd Div, I've also checked the rep increases for the promoted teams from Russian Div 2 to Premier while I was playing and that patterns held mostly true (think there is some weighing regarding relative rep involved as well). Don't think I've mentioned this before in any post, just some of the random things I check while playing

Interesting regarding the increase pattern, I'll be sure to look at that now that I'm on a new team.

/Z

[crouchaldinho]

Originally posted by ZJ:

I got Cameroon, and no I wasn't unemployed. Basically all of a sudden a bunch of International jobs came up and I applied to them and got one. Keep your eyes open after the African Cup of Nations and WQ/Euro qualifiers as a couple is usually fired then.

Interesting that because I have been applying for African international jobs.

I wonder if it is somehow easier to get one of these jobs if you are unemployed? Doesn't seem likely, but still?

C.

[crouchaldinho]

By the way, great work ZJ and Morridin - really interesting points!

C.

[Morridin]

Originally posted by DaveRH:

Morridin, based on the first page of posts I'd suggest that both the reputation changes and pre-match odds are calculated according to the ELO ranking system.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system

The differences in value depending on what competition you play in, or the relative value of the match would be attributed to a different K-factor (a weighting variable for want of a better term).

Interesting theory DaveRH. Do you have any reason to believe that FMM08 use this system other than the seemingly convergence of numbers?

[DaveRH]

Originally posted by Morridin:

Interesting theory DaveRH. Do you have any reason to believe that FMM08 use this system other than the seemingly convergence of numbers?

Modum 5 - 1 Brann, +7 Home rep, +7 Current rep, no change for world rep.

Modum 2 - 2 Brann, +2 Home rep, +2 Current rep, no change for world rep.

Modum 2 - 3 Brann, No change

Modum 0 - 2 Brann, No change

Modum 0 - 4 Brann, -1 Home rep, -1 current rep, -1 World rep.

Modum 1 - 6 Brann -2 Home rep, -2 Current rep, -1 World rep.

Modum 0 - 6 Brann, -3 Home rep, -3 Current rep, -1 World rep.

Modum 0 - 10 Brann, -7 Home rep, -7 Current rep, -1 World rep.

From these data I draw that the game predicts the favorite to win by a certain goal difference and sets a threshold there. If the favorite wins by this threshold or less nothing happens, if the difference is greater the manager of the favorite team gains reputation points at the cost of the other manager. Each goal the result differs from the predicted threshold represents either 1 point gained or one point lost for each of the managers (unless the favorite wins, which seems to prevent gain for the other manager). In this case the threshold seems to be between 2 or 3 goals in favor of Brann. Why two thresholds and not one? It's tempting to guess that the game calculates the difference by dividing the reputation of the favorite club with the oppositions reputation. In this case that would mean 5554/2185 which equals 2.54, as you can see quite in the middle of 2 or 3 goals.

The individual match reputation change you've described here matches the standard of the ELO system very well. I have not done any definative testing myself, but it fits the profile of the system well.

I mention it more as a possible way to refine your research, rather as any alternate suggestion to your theories.

Of course, it also has no impact on the mechanics of how managers are awarded jobs - simply how manager reputations are impacted by individual games.

[DaveRH]

Originally posted by DaveRH:

The individual match reputation change you've described here matches the standard of the ELO system very well. I have not done any definative testing myself, but it fits the profile of the system well.

I mention it more as a possible way to refine your research, rather as any alternate suggestion to your theories.

Of course, it also has no impact on the mechanics of how managers are awarded jobs - simply how manager reputations are impacted by individual games.

Sorry, I meant to say: it's likely that there is a constant value attached to the values also for continental/international results.

So rep increase = Competition Constant + ELO factoring from result.

[Morridin]

Originally posted by ZJ:

However, I remembered that I had a save from about a couple of weeks before I quit the first job, so I got the idea for an experiment. After many reloads, the Padova job opened up in the exact same time, but this time I was still employed. Guess what? I didn't get the job... reloaded a couple of times, but never got it.

What can we learn from this? - There is a difference if you are employed or not.

Good, I take this as very suggestive evidence that you are more likely to get a new job if you have just resigned.

Originally posted by ZJ:

This has 2 reasons, which I think both are valid.

1) Your under contract and you have to be paid. While this sum might seem small, it can be quite significant for smaller clubs and there is more to this as well, but I'll get onto that below.

2) When you quit your job, it seems your Current rep is static but ceases to be specific from the country of your club to being general, accessible to all nations you have loaded. This is based firstly on the fact that I got the job while unemployed but also on the news items that says you are being considered for jobs. While I was in Russia, I was never linked to any job but while I was unemployed I was linked with loads of jobs (supporting the theory that your current rep being more generic when you are unemployed). All of the jobs I was linked too was for clubs with rep below mine so no surprise there. After I accepted the Padova job, I was constantly again being linked with jobs all over the place (remember that my rep is still the same as it was when I was in Russia but never was linked with anything).

1. I have never actually seen this myself, but a whole lot of people believe it and say it`s so. Keep your eye out next time you get a job offer while still contracted to a club and especially check the clubs bank accounts before and after your signing.

2. The "generic current rep theory" isn`t quite satisfactory to me. I think the news items are rather related to whether other clubs believe you would be interested in managing them. This would have two implications. Firstly it would mean that you are more likely to get linked with other jobs if your rep is way higher than your club`s rep. This is the case in my game at least, as after two successful seasons with Heartlepool I am suddenly linked with clubs all over Europe. Very early in my Heartlepool career the numbers were 4530, 4544, 2503 and 3128 (Club), while near the end of the second season it`s 5604, 6977, 3599, 4145, the increases are 1074, 2433, 1096 and 1017. Notice that Current rep has increased about 2.5 times more than club rep. Secondly it would imply that you would be linked with more jobs while you are unemployed, which seems to fit your case. The main reason I don`t quite believe the "Generic current rep theory" is that there were no great difference in levels of the clubs I was linked with across countries.

Originally posted by ZJ:

Interestingly, looking at the jobs I was being linked to there was a similar trend again that they were below my current/home rep but here I discovered an interesting thing. I was only being linked with jobs in the same nations - Italy, France, Germany, England and Sweden. The latter two is because thats my nationalities, but the first two is directly related to the almost geographical closeness. I've never been linked with the other nations (Although I think this will change once your world rep becomes high enough). There is also a possibility that the geographic aspect is also related to knowledge of countries and/or relative rep of the leagues itself. It may also be that the jobs can only be in a band around your own rep, say at most +500 rep better than you or something like that - although this is just speculation that needs to be looked into more.

When combined with the following factors, it explain why I never got any offers in Russia:

Russia only have 2 leagues, so say 40-50 clubs and if you run it at full detail there is probably a larger database of managers than that, meaning that when it decided who to link with it is very unlikely that a human controlled manager will be in the top 4. However, if you are in different parts of the world, say England/Spain/Germany/Italy with several layers of leagues there is more clubs, i.e. more likely that the human manager would be on of the top 4 within the right rep bracket of what the club know it can get and hence the links all the time. I'm however so far not been actually offered a single job but more about that coming:

Hm, there are of course more clubs you can possibly be linked with in these countries plus more clubs at your approximate rep level. Could be as simple as that.

Originally posted by ZJ:

After this, I went back again to my save and resigned from the Russian team, went on holiday just to see the spectrum of teams that would offer me jobs if I applied. My reps is approx 5000, 5200, 5000. The jobs I got was up to around 90% of my rep, so 4800 although its still possible to get higher I would assume if you are lucky. The best teams I could get varied from low end Championship clubs to low end Serie B clubs. There was some discrepencies though, particularly being offered the Southampton job which at the time is a top CC club. Looking into this, I started checking the various factors and I found that there was a very stable trend between the chairmen of all the teams which offered me a job: They had a high value for Business, typically 14-20. Looking around, it made a bit of sense as my salery of my old club (£1200) was way, way below what other managers was getting in the same leagues. This ties into what I said before about contracts for managers effecting employment as Business-minded chairmen is less likely to hire you as opposed to when you are unemployed and "free". This obviously works the other way as well, if you are relatively really well-paid a business minded chairmen might not want you. Other chairman stats might thus also effect the hiring decisions and skew the process - Kipfizh's experiment shows some of this as well, that a incompetent board can't pick a good manager etc.

It`s possible of course, though I would think that high chairman Business rather meant that they would be stricter with your finances, less likely to do stupid financial decisions (Modum springs to mind), and be less forgiving if you don`t do well financially. What where the financial situation at those clubs? It`s possible that those chairmen are more prone to firing their managers, or there could simply be a lot of them at higher levels.

[Morridin]

Originally posted by DaveRH:

The individual match reputation change you've described here matches the standard of the ELO system very well. I have not done any definitive testing myself, but it fits the profile of the system well.

Yes, the data are indeed normally distributed so it is possible. The equation is awkward to use manually though, which makes testing difficult. Do you know of any software that calculates these scores?

[ZJ]

1. I have never actually seen this myself, but a whole lot of people believe it and say it`s so. Keep your eye out next time you get a job offer while still contracted to a club and especially check the clubs bank accounts before and after your signing.

2. The "generic current rep theory" isn`t quite satisfactory to me. I think the news items are rather related to whether other clubs believe you would be interested in managing them. This would have two implications. Firstly it would mean that you are more likely to get linked with other jobs if your rep is way higher than your club`s rep. This is the case in my game at least, as after two successful seasons with Heartlepool I am suddenly linked with clubs all over Europe. Very early in my Heartlepool career the numbers were 4530, 4544, 2503 and 3128 (Club), while near the end of the second season it`s 5604, 6977, 3599, 4145, the increases are 1074, 2433, 1096 and 1017. Notice that Current rep has increased about 2.5 times more than club rep. Secondly it would imply that you would be linked with more jobs while you are unemployed, which seems to fit your case. The main reason I don`t quite believe the "Generic current rep theory" is that there were no great difference in levels of the clubs I was linked with across countries.

Regarding 1, I'll do so. It makes very much logical sense as contracts are involved in most things you do when hiring people so why not for managers?

2 isn't a theory per se, I was just trying to say that there is something else behind it that we haven't thought about. The question is what happens to your current rep when you leave a country and go unemployed? Does it revert to being current for your home country or does something else happen?

Good point regarding if your rep is higher than the club, makes sense as the linking often talks about employed managers which indicates that they would be willing to move up. This can also be connected to the relative Rep of the league itself, i.e. you will be linked with clubs in leagues that have lower rep than the league you are currently managing in. I haven't checked this but regarding the teams I've been connected to it seems to be fairly true.

The clubs I've been linked with have varied quite a lot, from those with 1000 rep above me, all the way to clubs smaller than my current club. Obviously when you are unemployed all clubs will be higher than you so all clubs will be linked with you.

Hm, there are of course more clubs you can possibly be linked with in these countries plus more clubs at your approximate rep level. Could be as simple as that.

But these clubs were there before when I was in russia as well and I was at the same level then too but wasn't linked with anything. Must be something that governs the "knowledge" of clubs which tells it if its reasonable for you to be linked with it alternatively its simple done on rep basis only. Interestingly, I've been started to being linked with Russian Div 2 clubs with quite high rep (higher than mine) which gives plausability to the idea of the league itself being a important factor. Now that I'm in a league with higher rep than the Russian 2nd, I may start to be linked with it.

It`s possible of course, though I would think that high chairman Business rather meant that they would be stricter with your finances, less likely to do stupid financial decisions (Modum springs to mind), and be less forgiving if you don`t do well financially. What where the financial situation at those clubs? It`s possible that those chairmen are more prone to firing their managers, or there could simply be a lot of them at higher levels.

Well, it can be both really as one does not exclude the other. They might simply be more interested in making money by either saving or earning no matter what which links in to making financial decisions (hesitant to take on debt) and being less forgiving if you don't do well financially.

The financial situation was generally good, even very, very good in the club I took over eventually. Not sure about the level of them at higher levels, I'm at serie C1 atm so can't really say. Will try to check though.

[crouchaldinho]

I've got something to contribute - I hope it hasn't been said before on this thread.

I have just had a very successful season with my new club Kaiserslauten. I also got offered the Ghana job and managed to win the African Cup of Nations (which I might add is my first ever cup win on Football Manager).

My reputation is now continental and I was thinking of moving on to a new club because Kaiserslauten need some serious investment and the chairman just won't put his money where his mouth is. I decided to give him an ultimatum as a test and I was sacked. I went check my reputation afterwards and I have some news about that.

So, I think one of you guys have already said that you do not lose any of your reputation for resigning from a position. I have just found out that you do lose reputation for giving your board an ultimatum and then being sacked.

My current reputation was quite drastically reduced (with the two other reputation fields staying the same). Being sacked from my club due to making an ultimatum was enough to send me down from a continental reputation to a low national one. I think I lost somewhere between 600-800 points. I am sorry that I did not record the amount - I have since moved on to a new job so cannot repeat the exact test again.

So, to conclude, avoid being sacked wherever possible when building up a career (obvious statement really! ) and don't give the board an ultimatum, no matter how satisfying it may feel to throw all of the toys out of the pram when they won't support you. Just resign instead to keep your reputation intact.

I think the ultimatum business needs changing for future FMs personally. It's fair enough that you should lose rep for getting sacked but you should not lose rep for ultimatums. You are effectively resigning your position when you issue an ultimatum. You are saying, 'I won't work for you unless you give me some money to spend on players' or whatever. I believe that any reputation reduction due to sacking should be only applied in the case of sacking due to poor performances and not meeting expectations. Anyone agree?

C.

[crouchaldinho]

One more thing - do not under estimate the usefulness of the media comments regarding potential moves to a new club. For instance, when it says 'you have been linked to this job' and the options are 'I am extremely interested' or 'I am not interested at all' (or words to that effect).

When applying for jobs, I experimented with this and I found one particular job that I was accepted for once but then rejected for on subsequent reloads (while experimenting). I suddenly realised that I had not replied to the associated media comment for this job and the next reload I tried responding and got the job immediately. My competition was the same manager each time who had around the same kind of reputation as me. So I can only presume that my media feedback gave the board an extra interest in my application.

C.

[ZJ]

So, I think one of you guys have already said that you do not lose any of your reputation for resigning from a position. I have just found out that you do lose reputation for giving your board an ultimatum and then being sacked.

Brilliant... or well not brilliant that you got sacked, but you just saved me some work . This came up in another thread, namely that your rep takes a hit if you are sacked. Was going to check it but you beat me to it. Sounds perfectly reasonably though.

Originally posted by crouchaldinho:

One more thing - do not under estimate the usefulness of the media comments regarding potential moves to a new club. For instance, when it says 'you have been linked to this job' and the options are 'I am extremely interested' or 'I am not interested at all' (or words to that effect).

When applying for jobs, I experimented with this and I found one particular job that I was accepted for once but then rejected for on subsequent reloads (while experimenting). I suddenly realised that I had not replied to the associated media comment for this job and the next reload I tried responding and got the job immediately. My competition was the same manager each time who had around the same kind of reputation as me. So I can only presume that my media feedback gave the board an extra interest in my application.

C.

I wondered about this as well, and I think it might work on "declare interests" in jobs which you can do if the current manager is under pressure. If you have high enough rep it may give you an edge in applying for the job. I tried it once for a job I was linked with as top contender and I got the offer but that didn't tell me much so was waiting for a time when I wasn't so I could check.

Good work, needs to be looked into further but very interesting indeed. This makes it more interesting to find out why you are linked with some jobs and not others, if its only rep or something else as well.

/Z

[Morridin]

Originally posted by ZJ:

Brilliant... or well not brilliant that you got sacked, but you just saved me some work . This came up in another thread, namely that your rep takes a hit if you are sacked. Was going to check it but you beat me to it. Sounds perfectly reasonably though.

Hm, I tested this and did in fact take a hit to current rep worth 777 points (7765 to begin with. Might mean that you take 10% hit to current rep by giving an ultimatum.). Have anyone actually got anything by giving an Ultimatum?

[Morridin]

Originally posted by ZJ:

2 isn't a theory per se, I was just trying to say that there is something else behind it that we haven't thought about. The question is what happens to your current rep when you leave a country and go unemployed? Does it revert to being current for your home country or does something else happen?

My initial testing would suggest that your current rep is linked with the nation of your last club until you get a job in another country. As I remember, and have indeed written in the first thread, my reputation label did not change after I resigned my job at Indonesian team Melaka. It stayed National even though my reputation scores would only be worth a Regional label in Norway.

Oh, and I have just been signed by smart chairman Roman Abramovich of Chelsea in my game. So after 4 lower league wins, 2 in Norway and 2 in England, and 2 Paint trophies I am finally eligible for the Premiere Division.

[crouchaldinho]

Originally posted by Morridin:

Oh, and I have just been signed by smart chairman Roman Abramovich of Chelsea in my game. So after 4 lower league wins, 2 in Norway and 2 in England, and 2 Paint trophies I am finally eligible for the Premiere Division.

What is your reputation Morridin ?

So far my career has gone: St. Albans City (5yrs) --> Derry City (1.5 years) --> Kaiserslauten (1 yr) --> Ghana (employed for a few months and still there) --> Leverkusen (just been offered this job).

I'm after one of the huge jobs at some point in my career, either in Italy or maybe at Liverpool or Arsenal in the Prem.

At the moment, I am continental (around 7000ish, 7000ish, 5000ish - sorry can't remember the exact numbers). This is after winning three lower league titles in England and Ireland and one African Cup of Nations with Ghana.

The Germany national job came up in my game and I decided to apply and was beaten by a far better manager with 10000ish for every reputation field. I think I am still a little way off getting the really big jobs. Prior to my move to Leverkusen, I declared interest in AC Milan and got laughed at.

That's why I was curious about your getting the Chelsea job as you seem to have roughly achieved the same as I have in my game.

I wonder, is this a matter of nationality. I have mainly been hunting for jobs in Italy and Germany, rather than in England? I am saving England for later in my career so that I can have a kind of glorious homecoming!

Would be interested to hear more about your game Morridin .

Cheers,

C.

[Morridin]

Originally posted by crouchaldinho:

What is your reputation Morridin ?

At the moment it is 5912, 7774, 4154, so your stats are better than mine. I think Current rep is the most important variable when applying for jobs, as I was linked with clubs like AC Milan and Juventus before I was signed by Chelsea. I always thought that when you apply for jobs at clubs with your nationality the game would use Current rep + Home Rep to decide whether you would get the job and all other clubs would use Current + World, but I'm starting to think that World is only used when applying for national teams.

[crouchaldinho]

Originally posted by Morridin:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by crouchaldinho:

What is your reputation Morridin ?

At the moment it is 5912, 7774, 4154, so your stats are better than mine. I think Current rep is the most important variable when applying for jobs, as I was linked with clubs like AC Milan and Juventus before I was signed by Chelsea. I always thought that when you apply for jobs at clubs with your nationality the game would use Current rep + Home Rep to decide whether you would get the job and all other clubs would use Current + World, but I'm starting to think that World is only used when applying for national teams. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

My reputation figures are 7607, 7730, 5464.

I was linked with Paris St. Germain and a couple of midtable Premiership sides during the summer. I expressed interest in a number of jobs, in particular the AC Milan one, which gave the response that I was major outsider for the job and my decision to show my interest 'smells of desperation'! I'm pretty sure I applied for Liverpool and got rejected too. I struggled to get any interest from Serie A clubs.

Any idea what is going on? I'm clueless as to how you managed to land the Chelsea job. Have they had a fall from grace at all that could explain a potential reputation fall?

I was firmly linked with Paris St. Germain (rep of 7563).

Rejected by Liverpool, if I remember correctly... (rep 8283).

Laughed at by AC Milan (rep 8987).

Also got rejected by Germany and Spain (8500 and 8250) plus Belgium (5750). They are all higher than my world reputation, so your theory makes sense.

I was only being offered midtable sides in the top flight in England, France, Italy and Germany.

I managed to get the Leverkusen job in the end (rep of 6499).

..................................

Actually, I have just checked the Chelsea reputation and they are rated at 7380 on my game after not winning anything for quite a few years. I wonder if this why your reputation was good enough to get that job? I should also be in with a chance of getting the Chelsea job given my current rep. However, it still doesn't explain why you were linked with the AC Milan job and I was laughed at!

I'm only jealous...

C.

[crouchaldinho]

I couldn't let this rest so I've just done some testing (which is a bit naughty seeing as I'm supposed to be working, ah well!)

So, I quit Leverkusen in a test version of the game and sacked off a few managers, then applied for the jobs.

Chelsea job (7380) lost out to Spaletti (9994, 8991, 8848).

Liverpool job (8283) lost out to Mike McCarthy (REALLY?!?!?!) who has a rep of 9470, 8947, 6975.

Tottenham job (6243) offered straight away.

What leagues do you have loaded Morridin - could it be easier for you to get the Chelsea job because you're not competing with Italian, German and French managers like I am?

Well, I'm happy at Leverkusen for now. Got to try and build a side to succeed so that I can get a move to Serie A next - that's the plan!

C.

[dafuge]

Looks interesting this

I hope you don't mind me moving it to the 'Challenges, Sign-Ups & Experiments' forum so it can be with the other game experiment threads. I'll leave a shortcut in this forum for a while so people know it has moved.

[dafuge]

and before anyone asks, because the number of posts per page are different on the two forums, the link to the last page won't always work.

[Wegason]

Just got to say this is a really interesting thread and I've found the results fascinating.

[PaulHartman71]

Originally posted by Wegason:

Just got to say this is a really interesting thread and I've found the results fascinating.

whs

[ZJ]

Just something to think about, it would be good if we did some sort of summary of the details/results so far. Would help new readers and maybe be of use for us to find new things to look into.

Would also be good to know what we have confirmed and what we have not.

I'm off this weekend on holiday, so won't be around, but I'll start doing a bit of summary next week if no-one beats me to it.

Also had some weird things happening, but will write that up when I've finished my season (5 games to go, 3 points up to #1, wish me luck).

[Morridin]

Originally posted by crouchaldinho:

What leagues do you have loaded Morridin - could it be easier for you to get the Chelsea job because you're not competing with Italian, German and French managers like I am?

Chelsea has had a little fall from grace, but nothing major. They are currently ranked as number 6 in the premiere with rep score of 7851. I play all your leagues and more so I don't think that's the explanation. It's very possible that there is a element of luck in the picture.

Originally posted by ZJ:

Just something to think about, it would be good if we did some sort of summary of the details/results so far. Would help new readers and maybe be of use for us to find new things to look into.

Would also be good to know what we have confirmed and what we have not.

I'm off this weekend on holiday, so won't be around, but I'll start doing a bit of summary next week if no-one beats me to it.

I am currently doing a major rewrite of the main thread, but there are a great deal of material to incorporate so it might take a little while before it's finished.

[Wegason]

Originally posted by crouchaldinho:

I think the ultimatum business needs changing for future FMs personally. It's fair enough that you should lose rep for getting sacked but you should not lose rep for ultimatums. You are effectively resigning your position when you issue an ultimatum. You are saying, 'I won't work for you unless you give me some money to spend on players' or whatever. I believe that any reputation reduction due to sacking should be only applied in the case of sacking due to poor performances and not meeting expectations. Anyone agree?

C.

I completely agree and have done since the feature was introduced.

The whole system needs reworking, when you issue an ultimatum to the board, you are not saying "Expand the stadium or fire me", you're saying "Expand the stadium to allow the club to fulfill its ambition or I will resign".

You're threatening to resign if you don't get your way.

In this regard (seeing as I've never had an ultimatum work in any testing I've done), if the board rejects your ultimatum, the game should then recognise this and make you choose whether to resign or not, with corresponding consequences of your integrity and ability to get the board to do things you request (feeder clubs, parent clubs, stadium expansions etc) in the future if you do not resign.

The board could also then decide, if you don't resign to not renew your contract "because you try to hold the board to ransom" or can just sack you if you don't resign as you said you would because of the current reason used in game. (With resigning giving no hit to rep, sacking giving a hit to rep).

Furthermore, if you issue an ultimatum, get rejected, and then resign, the game can determine if you're ultimatum was supported by the fans and there can be repercussions whereby the fans support the manager who resigned and demand board change etc (Theoretically adding in the potential in future FM's for fan unrest to cause lower attendances and board changeovers).

I also think you should be able to issue ultimatums to the board when they go over your head to sell a player. "If you sell my star player, I'll resign" (which would be popular with the fans). The board may not want to lose a successful manager over one player sale.

[Morridin]

Thanks to dafuge (the fastest forum moderator in the west!) all my three main posts have been updated and are well worth a second read. I have yet to fully incorporate all the most recent data, and the "My game" section are currently three and a half season behind, but more updates will come in the near future.

[SCIAG]

I don't have time to read the whole thread, but could you look into whether manager rep affects the quality of players you can sign? Make sure the club's rep, budgets and other factors (eg player favourred personel) are all the same.

[Morridin]

Originally posted by SCIAG:

I don't have time to read the whole thread, but could you look into whether manager rep affects the quality of players you can sign? Make sure the club's rep, budgets and other factors (eg player favourred personel) are all the same.

As I believe more people would be interested I did a quick experiment to shed some light on this matter.

Manager reputation and signing players

For this experiment I Created a Norwegian manager with rep scores of 500,500,250 who took the helm at Fulham. I the did a player search and asked my assistant to filter out unrealistic targets. I took a screenshot of the players that came up, retired my manager, created a new one with scores of 8000, 8000, 4000 and repeated the procedure.

The results where clear: Manager reputation do affect what players you can sign.

When I compared the two lists there where clear differences. The first manager was able to hire 53361 players, while the second manager could chose from 54165 players. Considering the fact the the two managers was at both their extremes reputation wise, and that manager 2 only could hire 804 more players than manager 1 (1.5% more), this effect is not that great. Among the 22 most valuable players manager 2 only had 3 more players than manager 1 to chose from.

[Wegason]

Which would point towards club reputation being the key to players being interested.

The next test in this regard, to further test, would be as so:

Does manager reputation come into affect when there are multiple teams bidding for the same player?

E.g. similar reputable teams bidding for the same player. Does the player choose a team based on the manager sometimes?

(Because you get that screen saying the player is looking forward to working with you sometimes when you sign a player)

[ZJ]

Ok, looks like the Forum downtime came just in time for me to get back. Can anyone get the link to the General forum back as well? I'll do a mod request for it after the post.

Got some additional information which is quite interesting:

After leaving my Russian club in premier division (rep 13) for Serie C1 (rep 8) my reputation was 5065, 5217, 5024 and the club was 3592.

2 games before the end of the season, my rep was 5055, 5146, 5022 and the club was 3594. This is very interesting because my record up until this point was 19-9-4 with the club team, and 7-0-0 with Cameroon in the African World Cup Qualifiers.

After winning the league, my rep became 5710, 6587, 5677 and the club got 4251. The increases was thus +655, +1441, +655 and the club +657.

In addition, there was also a C1 Super Cup which I won, increasing my rep to 5969, 7230, 5937 while the club stayed constant on 4251. The increases was thus +259, +643, +260.

In an effort to avoid having to replay it at all, I got the rep for the opposing coach which was 7021, 6856, 3442 and his increase for losing was +374, +369, +129. He was Italian which explains why his Home rep increase was bigger than mine despite being on the losing side.

Finally, it was also time for Confederations Cup where I won against Australia, drew against Germany, lost to Spain (to a 94th minute winnger ) but made it to semi-finals were I lost to Holland 3-1 on penalties after a 2-2 draw. In the 3rd place playoff, I lost to Spain again, 4-2 this time. I didn't get any rep increase from the 3rd place playoff although I forgot to replay it to check if I would have got it if I would have won it. Interestingly, I had some movements in rep from game to game but these follows the logic of odds based on reputation.

Anyway, after winning the league I got a job offer. FC Nantes have had a spectular fall from grace but still fills their 38k stadium, offered twice my salary and a 1M transfer fund in addition to 4x the wage budget of what Padova could offer. In addition to the fact that their squad looked great. So i took the job.

However, being under contract it was time to check one more thing. I was on a £1200 p/w contract and there was a bit more than 1 year left on it. 52 x 1200 = 62400 plus the other weeks (around 3-5). I went into the Nantes screen before I accepted the job and on the Transfer Screen under Job Offer there I was and listed as a fee was 70k. After I took the job, there was a 67xxx sum under transfer money for that month in the finances screen.

So, some interesting things:

A) If you go from a higher rep league to a lower one, you can expect very little rep gain from games alone, only from winning the league/cups. I would assume the same happens if you been in the same league for a long time as you would plataeu.

B) I got no rep bonus at all for qualifying to the World Cup, despite the African Qualifiers having a respectable rep of 11. Might be that because its lower than 12 of the Russian League and that the teams I played had lower rep than Cameroon, there was no gain to be made. However, after qualifying I played a 2nd string 11 and lost to some team and immediately suffered a -25 loss across the board. So its definately a bad idea to put up your second string against lower rep teams on the international scene as a loss hurts.

C) From a career perspective, the Italian League is quite good for rep increases as there is a Serie C Cup, a Serie C1 Super Cup and Serie C2 Super Cup. If you can win your league, you not only get a massive increase from that, you get an immediate game which counts a cup final so that guarantee's you another increase. This also means leagues with plenty of cups is very valuable as opposed to those that only have one cup in which the top teams participates.

D) There was no Rep gain from a 4th place finish (silly of me not to check if there was for 3rd place) and assuming the logic is the same, this can said to apply for the World Cup as well. I'll be playing in it in a years time, so will check then but I hope that there is some larger increase on a game to game basis due to its massive rep (20). Would be sad if its not as you could take a minor nation to a 4th place and end up not getting anything for it.

E) Seems likely that if you play in your home country your increase will be in a 2-2-1 patter while in other countries in a 1-2-1 pattern.

F) Also seems confirmed that clubs definately have to pay your club for the remainder of your contract if they want you. I believe this is factored into the stats of the Chairman. I will post some more interesting information about the chairman of Nantes in the next post as my computer is acting up at the moment. But if I remember correctly he had a low Business score.

[Morridin]

Welcome back to a new forum! Good to see you are still with us ZJ.

As for the 2-2-1 vs the 1-2-1 pattern your data completely correlate with mine. All we have to do now is compare rep boosts in domestic leagues with foreign leagues of similar rep, to see if we can truly operate with the 2-2-1 vs 1-2-1 pattern.

Would appreciate your input on my previous posts and my updates to the first three posts ZJ, if you can persuaded to read them.

[ZJ]

Welcome back to a new forum! Good to see you are still with us ZJ.

As for the 2-2-1 vs the 1-2-1 pattern your data completely correlate with mine. All we have to do now is compare rep boosts in domestic leagues with foreign leagues of similar rep, to see if we can truly operate with the 2-2-1 vs 1-2-1 pattern.

Would appreciate your input on my previous posts and my updates to the first three posts ZJ, if you can persuaded to read them.

Read through them, looks great! Think you got most of the information in, although I think we could do with a quick point by point summary towards the end of the thread to summarize it a bit for new readers as they won't know to go back and to add small bits of information so we don't lose them. Also a dedicated post to "things to do to progress your career" so we seperate that from the experiments/date themselves.

Anyway, I'm currently looking into the chairman a bit, in particular the stats and how they might effect hiring decisions. The chairman of Nantes has Business 5, so that seems to correspond to the idea that it might influence whether they offer you a job while employed. If we make the assumption that it is the Chairman only that makes the decision (and not a amalgate of the board), it will be interesting to look at the 4 stats the FM Data Editor assigns to chairmen: Business, Interference, Patience and Resources. I've read Ambition factors in, but i think don't that is actually true but rather than the ambition of the chairman decides the goal he will set for you. High ambition = higher/harder targets.

Interference is rather self-explanatory and I don't think it factor into the hiring a manager decision. Similarly, Patience logically only decides when they fire you or how long they will tolerate certain behaviour (which might combine with Interference in how quick they will about doing something when their patience has run out).

That leaves Business (B) and Resources ®. I think the two of them may effect it. A club with high R and low B don't care about the cost of the manager while low R and high B would mean they are very sensitive to the cost issue and much rather prefer a unemployed manager. If a club has high B and high R, it might possible mean that while they are prepared to pay you, they will not be held ransom or payer over the odds price for a manager/player. If the chairman has low R and low B, it can either take the effect of hiring cheap labour (i.e. unemployed) or paying over-price for a manager.

An interesting side-note to this is that while skimming through chairman of notable clubs in the top leagues, the data editor only gives a few of them random values and rather assigns set values for 2-3 of the 4 stats in most cases. In the case of Chelsea, Roman got B 19/20 and R 20/20 and set values for the 2 other as well. This indicates that these values are important as they will factor in how a club will behave.

However, I think that this is seperate from the Rep issue itself, i.e. a club will only consider you to begin with if your rep falls within the acceptable range from the rep of the club itself. It would be very interesting if anyone had any data on "weird" appointments to massive clubs. So in context, this will only be a side-note when the chairman chooses between otherwise equal candidates and since we can't know what other candidates are available, its hard to check. One way to look at this would be to apply for a job, then when you get it, go back and NOT apply and check who gets it instead (the 2nd best candidate) and then compare yourself to him to see why you got it instead.

/Z

[jod123]

Interesting thread.

I have something that might interest you. I started a career game in Britain and Ireland. I started unemployed with automatic reputation and applied for jobs. I got the Chimney Corner job in the Northern Irish second division. They were expected to finish 9th out of 12 and had the joint lowest rep in the league. I guided them to 3rd (just missed out on promotion), and the following season got promotion by finishing 2nd. We also won a cup. My reputation had increased by enough to be bigger tha all clubs in the first division and some in the premier division. There were several jobs available and due to my club's poor finances, I resigned. I applied for several jobs in all playable leagues and declared interest in ones where I had a larger reputation. The news items said it was sheer desperation and I got no jobs. I noticed that the jobs were going to regens and also assistant managers rather than me. I eventually got offered one job and that was a newly promoted team in the northern irish second division where I had just been promoted from. Using FMM i increased my reputation and tried applying and I obviously got offered more jobs but not anywhere near as many as I thought and reputation deserved. I then applied to an english club (can't remember who) and was rejected. I looked at my reputation and its reputation and I saw that my world reputation alone was bigger than its reputation. My home and current were each twice my world reputation. I again lost out to a regen. I'm sorry I can't remember the figures. I should have recorded them. It looks like you need a much bigger reputation than the club's reputation.

[Morridin]

So, some interesting things:

A) If you go from a higher rep league to a lower one, you can expect very little rep gain from games alone, only from winning the league/cups. I would assume the same happens if you been in the same league for a long time as you would plataeu.

B) I got no rep bonus at all for qualifying to the World Cup, despite the African Qualifiers having a respectable rep of 11. Might be that because its lower than 12 of the Russian League and that the teams I played had lower rep than Cameroon, there was no gain to be made. However, after qualifying I played a 2nd string 11 and lost to some team and immediately suffered a -25 loss across the board. So its definately a bad idea to put up your second string against lower rep teams on the international scene as a loss hurts.

C) From a career perspective, the Italian League is quite good for rep increases as there is a Serie C Cup, a Serie C1 Super Cup and Serie C2 Super Cup. If you can win your league, you not only get a massive increase from that, you get an immediate game which counts a cup final so that guarantee's you another increase. This also means leagues with plenty of cups is very valuable as opposed to those that only have one cup in which the top teams participates.

D) There was no Rep gain from a 4th place finish (silly of me not to check if there was for 3rd place) and assuming the logic is the same, this can said to apply for the World Cup as well. I'll be playing in it in a years time, so will check then but I hope that there is some larger increase on a game to game basis due to its massive rep (20). Would be sad if its not as you could take a minor nation to a 4th place and end up not getting anything for it.

E) Seems likely that if you play in your home country your increase will be in a 2-2-1 patter while in other countries in a 1-2-1 pattern.

F) Also seems confirmed that clubs definately have to pay your club for the remainder of your contract if they want you. I believe this is factored into the stats of the Chairman. I will post some more interesting information about the chairman of Nantes in the next post as my computer is acting up at the moment. But if I remember correctly he had a low Business score.

I have delayed giving you extensive feedback on your last two post ZJ, as they are very detailed and giving them a good response would take a lot of time. They do deserve feedback though, so here it is at last.

A) Good point, and fits the general reputation averaging theory. Games in themselves are generally of negligible importance though, except for high ranking ones (like African cup) apparently.

B) I think those are treated like normal club league matches, but you might very well have a point about the rep.

C) I have also discovered this and it will figure in my next player strategy update.

D) This seems to be the case for all cups.

E) By now I would say it is proven.

F) Great, we now have confirmed that your contract needs to be bought in the same way as any other staff member. This would suggest that only clubs with sufficient budget and possibly the right chairman stats will offer you a job while still under contract. More of this below...

Anyway, I'm currently looking into the chairman a bit, in particular the stats and how they might effect hiring decisions. The chairman of Nantes has Business 5, so that seems to correspond to the idea that it might influence whether they offer you a job while employed. If we make the assumption that it is the Chairman only that makes the decision (and not a amalgate of the board), it will be interesting to look at the 4 stats the FM Data Editor assigns to chairmen: Business, Interference, Patience and Resources. I've read Ambition factors in, but i don't think that is actually true but rather than the ambition of the chairman decides the goal he will set for you. High ambition = higher/harder targets.

Interference is rather self-explanatory and I don't think it factor into the hiring a manager decision. Similarly, Patience logically only decides when they fire you or how long they will tolerate certain behaviour (which might combine with Interference in how quick they will about doing something when their patience has run out).

That leaves Business (B) and Resources ®. I think the two of them may effect it. A club with high R and low B don't care about the cost of the manager while low R and high B would mean they are very sensitive to the cost issue and much rather prefer a unemployed manager. If a club has high B and high R, it might possible mean that while they are prepared to pay you, they will not be held ransom or payer over the odds price for a manager/player. If the chairman has low R and low B, it can either take the effect of hiring cheap labour (i.e. unemployed) or paying over-price for a manager.

An interesting side-note to this is that while skimming through chairman of notable clubs in the top leagues, the data editor only gives a few of them random values and rather assigns set values for 2-3 of the 4 stats in most cases. In the case of Chelsea, Roman got B 19/20 and R 20/20 and set values for the 2 other as well. This indicates that these values are important as they will factor in how a club will behave.

However, I think that this is separate from the Rep issue itself, i.e. a club will only consider you to begin with if your rep falls within the acceptable range from the rep of the club itself. It would be very interesting if anyone had any data on "weird" appointments to massive clubs. So in context, this will only be a side-note when the chairman chooses between otherwise equal candidates and since we can't know what other candidates are available, its hard to check. One way to look at this would be to apply for a job, then when you get it, go back and NOT apply and check who gets it instead (the 2nd best candidate) and then compare yourself to him to see why you got it instead.

Hm, defining the relevance of the chairman stats in terms of your chance of getting the job needs a fair bit of testing, but I will be more than happy to add it to the article if you want to do it. One way of doing it could be to check for similarities between chairmen of the various clubs linked to you.

I think you are dead on about Interference and Patience, but I have a slightly different understanding of Business (B) and Resources ®. I think of R as how much money the chairman has, as in how much he would be able to bring into the club if needed and how willing he would be to finance certain projects, while B is how much he cares about how the clubs money is spent and how likely he is to take out profits. This would mean that B is the important factor when hiring new managers.

Chelsea hiring me might very well be an example of your theory about B as I had only a week left of my contract when I got the job.

[Morridin]

Interesting thread.

I have something that might interest you. I started a career game in Britain and Ireland. I started unemployed with automatic reputation and applied for jobs. I got the Chimney Corner job in the Northern Irish second division. They were expected to finish 9th out of 12 and had the joint lowest rep in the league. I guided them to 3rd (just missed out on promotion), and the following season got promotion by finishing 2nd. We also won a cup. My reputation had increased by enough to be bigger tha all clubs in the first division and some in the premier division. There were several jobs available and due to my club's poor finances, I resigned. I applied for several jobs in all playable leagues and declared interest in ones where I had a larger reputation. The news items said it was sheer desperation and I got no jobs. I noticed that the jobs were going to regens and also assistant managers rather than me. I eventually got offered one job and that was a newly promoted team in the northern irish second division where I had just been promoted from. Using FMM i increased my reputation and tried applying and I obviously got offered more jobs but not anywhere near as many as I thought and reputation deserved. I then applied to an english club (can't remember who) and was rejected. I looked at my reputation and its reputation and I saw that my world reputation alone was bigger than its reputation. My home and current were each twice my world reputation. I again lost out to a regen. I'm sorry I can't remember the figures. I should have recorded them. It looks like you need a much bigger reputation than the club's reputation.

I assume you where checking your rep scores with FMM all the time as rep labels can, as mentioned before, be deceiving. Nationality also factors into this but you generally need to win promotion twice in order to advance a division in the lower leagues. Your rep scores generally need to be higher than the clubs to get the job, when I was hired by Hartlepool (rep about 3100) I had rep scores of about 4400, 4400 and 2500. This is not so strict in the higher divisions though, as I got the Chelsea job (7851) with 5898, 7707 and 3893.

[jod123]

I was checking with FMM. I cannot remeber the exact figures though. They were something like 3,800 3,800 and 1,700 after editing them to see what would happen. I had Irish nationality and got rejected by a Conference South club (cannot remember who) who had a reputation of around 1,600. I was also dismissed by several top Irish clubs and the top clubs there had reputations of 4,000. Regens and assistants got all these jobs. About assistants also surely their reputation is as an assistant and not a manager.