Disappointment in 'rags to riches' scenarios

[Sparkmeister]

Hi,

I've always enjoyed playing FM as a non league team, pumping them with cash on the editor and taking them up the leagues. Many of you won't respect this as it takes away most of the challenge. My argument is that I enjoy building a club from the bottom up with more freedom in what I can do and also I don't have the time to labour over a club that can take several seasons (i.e. over 48 in-game hours) to really change status.

Unfortunately I was playing FM 2014 for the first time yesterday and found it completely prohibitive to playing the game the way I like. I understand the desire to maintain realism in the game (such as Financial Fair Play) but, in my view, this has gone too far.

I took over Leamington Spa in Skrill North. I gave them a huge bank balance on the editor. It wasn't like I was going for the Messi types, I tried to sign free agents with very low repuations. None of them would come. I got back on the FMRTE in-game editor and did a little bit of playing around to see what I could do. Here's what I found -

The average player in Skrill North seems to be about 30 in current ability.

The top players in Skrill North seemed to be around 80 in current ability.

I could not sign anyone over 50 in CA. They just would decline me immediately upon contract negotiations.

So I upped Leamington's reputation to Premier League levels and upped the Skrill North's reputation as a league to League 1 levels. Still, no one over 50 CA would come! This is ridiculous.

Then I tried another game as Coventry in League 1. This was a write off as I could not remove the transfer embargo whatever I did. Removing it in the editor brought up the message that it was gone but it actually wasn't when I tried signing people

I tried another game with Ternana in Serie B and gave them money on the editor in order to eventually compete with the likes of Juventus and AC Milan. I tried signing a young player whose CA was amongst the best in Serie B but not massively superior (around 130). He wanted to come but his wage demands were around 10K a week. Ternana could only offer 4K. I tried giving them even more money and upped the wage budget and max wage section in the editor. Absolutely nothing would increase the maximum wage I could offer.

Another problem was that Steam won't let me update FM. I have tried verifying the cache but it just doesn't work.

You could argue that I shouldn't be trying to cheat or impose 'rags to riches' scenarios in the editor. My argument would be that it's a fantasy football game and I believe I have the right to do this given that I could in previous versions. I want to take a team up the leagues and don't have the huge amount of time needed to do this without the editor help. Plus I keep it realistic to the extent that I try to don't like to buy players too far above the other top players in that league. I like to buy young players with high PAs but with CAs only just over the average in the league I'm in. I still like to keep a semblance of challenge.

I'm very disappointed in this year's version. Wish I hadn't bought it, unfortunately

[endtime]

To remove the administration status from Coventry, you need to edit or delete the appropriate file in the following directory: program files\steam\steamapps\common\Football Manager 2014\data\db\1400\edt. The file name is start_in_admin.edt and it overrides the data in the db.

As for Leamington Spa, I presume they are semi-pro or amateur. You need to change the club's status to pro if you want to be able to attract decent players.

As for Ternana, I think the board will prevent you from having one player on wages massively higher than the rest of the squad, so if all your players are on wages in the ~1k p/w, you may not be able to offer 10k p/w to one player - try giving a lot of your players a higher contract and see what happens.

[Sparkmeister]

Aha, thanks very much endtime. I will give that a try.

[Max Clayton-Robb]

It's certainly possible to achieve this sort of edit. As endtime suggests, you could set Leamington Spa to Professional. You could also upgrade their training and youth facilities, pitch condition, stadium, morale etc. In terms of players, there have been big changes to the transfer code this year which means it's harder to attract unrealistic signings initially. However, once you have made the squad better you will quickly see a change in the calibre of players you can get. It's just not as quick as previous versions, but perfectly doable.