More immersive manager/transfer AI

[PJHoutman88]

I'm not sure how much this is a 'feature' as much as a general improvement, but I've always found the AI of other managers behaving too 'robotically' when it comes to transfers. That's why we sometimes get five clubs bidding the exact same amount on the same player at exactly 4pm on the exact same day - I find it both immersion-breaking and predictable.  

The life-cycle of AI managers picking up players from a human manager is very simple. A player hits a certain threshold, either in reputation or in CA/PA - and he becomes a target for a certain number of clubs. Sometimes one, sometimes three. This is understandable behaviour from an AI that's thinking within certain parameters, but I'd like more variation in it. In general, I find that 'our' players are wanted far too sporadically, even if they are performing well.

Here's an example just off the top of my head: In my FM18 save, I played as Universidad de Chile and my striker scored 61 goals in 30 league games. Now, I'm not saying that alone should be a reason for Real Madrid or Barcelona to have a look, but he was 21 and had already had three seasons where he averaged over an 8 in the league and scored more than a goal a game, yet no single club ever showed up 'Wnt' - despite having the big European leagues loaded. Now I know, based on his attributes, that player isn't nearly good enough to perform for top sides in La Liga, and he's only scoring so much because my entire tactic was geared towards getting the best out of him. But the AI shouldn't know that. Real life clubs, especially mid-table sides in big leagues, often take a gamble on a cheap player to see if it turns out to be a match. I'd like to see that reflected more. I'd like to see sides like Getafe or Betis put in a bid for him; his market value was 5M. I wouldn't have accepted that, but again: the AI shouldn't know that.  

What I feel is missing from the game is managers occasionally getting interested in (and maybe even putting in a bid for) players that are overperforming their attributes. I know AI managers don't need much help making bad transfer decisions, but it always feels like those decisions are happening around us rather than (also) to us.

[Neil Brock]

Reviewed so locked.