What are your house rules?

[Crispypaul]

Always start with Sunday League rep and usually no coaching badges or just the first one

No external editors/player finder tools etc. Scouts, DoF recommendations or player search only 

Never choose match highest earner or sell on percentage in player contracts

[matt_forest]

- I'll start with the lowest rep/ coaching badges whilst having at least 2 for each attribute slider (so I can't set everything to 1 in order to have another slider ridiculously high)

- I like to play LLM style with attribute masking on. I avoid signings players from past experience with them in another save and normally wont sign a player without fully scouting. The exception to this is on deadline day and only if I really need to fill a positiondue to injury or the sale of another player, but this is usually very rare.

- I don't use the player search tab at all. I can use the scouted players list and any shortlists made from those players but I'm not allowed to filter the players by attributes. Instead I organise them by the scouts overall recommendation or the current/ potential ability stars.

- I try to limit the number of signings in a transfer window where possible. Especially when joining a new team, I won't go and make a signing if I already have at least two players for that position.

- Even if I could, I try to avoid signing older 'star' players when it would be unrealistic to do so. Im managing in Croatia in my current game and managed to sign Rakitic on wages around £15k. I could've also picked up Mandzukic on a free but he only wanted £1k a week which I think was just unrealistic.

 

[deltablue]

No managing in the same nation twice in a row. 

No managing the fierce rival of a team I have already managed that save. 

There are a handful of teams I will not manage. 

Be financially sustainable (as I have been in situations with Ipswich in the past where transfer fees have used up all the money and the wage bill has risen to the point we weren't earning any more)

Sometimes it's been signing players under 21 (though I often go for young players anyway as the best potential players who will either come or are affordable).

No deleting rivers or making land bridges across water. (Sorry, that one is for OpenTTD).

Never date a co-worker.

[llDracoll]

The only thing I have that is remotely close to a house rule is to try to avoid managing a team I've managed in a previous save whenever possible.

[nully29]

Since two most overpowered tools are tactics and transfers, I sometimes make saves with rules as following :

 

1. Use a preset vanilla tactic and don't change it at all. (in some saves I let it change according to assistant 's advice). I focus on squad building and want to have an even field with AI.

 

2. Whenever I want to buy a player, I add him as a transfer target and let DoF buy him. If DoF fails so be it. DoF fails surprisingly often. Particularly, DoF always fails to sign a player, who is currently on trial with you. It might be a bug, but I live with it. 

 

Apparently, you can still be fairly successful with those rules. For what it worth, if you start with Kidderminster, in the first season they win the vanarama north league with preset 4231 control possession and no signings. Even though media prediction is abouth 16th and board expectations are like mid table. Player interactions are key (as long, as tactics and transfers are nerfed). 

Edited August 2, 2020 by nully29

[matt_forest]

20 minutes ago, nully29 said:

Since two most overpowered tools are tactics and transfers, I sometimes make saves with rules as following :

 

1. Use a preset vanilla tactic and don't change it at all. (in some saves I let it change according to assistant 's advice). I focus on squad building and want to have an even field with AI.

 

2. Whenever I want to buy a player, I add him as a transfer target and let DoF buy him. If DoF fails so be it. DoF fails surprisingly often. Particularly, DoF always fails to sign a player, who is currently on trial with you. It might be a bug, but I live with it. 

 

Apparently, you can still be fairly successful with those rules. For what it worth, if you start with Kidderminster, in the first season they win the vanarama north league with preset 4231 control possession and no signings. Even though media prediction is abouth 16th and board expectations are like mid table. Player interactions are key (as long, as tactics and transfers are nerfed). 

I've thought of doing that with a game but have yet to give it a try. For me the DoF is mostly just an extra scout as I'll handle all player and staff signings, when really having one should change the way you have to play. It'd be interesting if SI added an option that would lock the staff responsibilites when you join a club with a DoF or if your club decide to change the setup and bring one in.

[Mystique]

I employ the Fergie rule:

Never pay a player more than the manager.

[janrzm]

- Game Rules:

• I select friendlies against teams who play with the tactics and mentalities I'm most likely to face. Like @CaptCanuck I also save after my friendlies are complete, then replay the the games where I felt my tactic didn't behave as I'd hoped. I may replay these several times. I think this fills the "training ground void" of not being able to physically see more of your tactic being trained outside of an actual match.
• Always save before any contract negotiation or transfer offer. If it breaks down, I have to make an honest decision about the circumstances under which that happens, if I just got it wrong I live with it. If it broke down after 2 seconds and was unrealistic in that regard I may reload but only in extreme circumstances as it almost inevitably detracts.
• First Transfer Window off, always. 

- Club Rules:

• I will always spend some time researching a club and in particular its transfer activity. What types of player they go for, what markets they move in geographically. I will then do my utmost to replicate that in the game, until I reach a point in a save where I think there' be a realistic chance the club would be looking to amend some of its strategies. I recently started an FC Nordsjælland save, complete with Ghana leagues so I had a better visibility of their Right to Dream Academy, as the game doesn't give us enough control over this type of affiliate club I had to install another manager at RTD and holiday them so I could control the tactics they played, their recruitment and youth intake etc. Its hard work......I'd love to see some more in game controls for these types of scenario allowing us to more accurately define the relationship between linked clubs.
• "How likely is that to happen in real life" I ask myself this before any transfer, if I can't see it then I avoid doing at as takes only one or two decisions like this to destroy immersion for me. The game always, always turns up these opportunities for clubs to sign players that are just out of their league and unrealistic so you have to ignore them.

 

 

[JR_Junior]

I don't have many rules, I just like to go with the flow of the save and see what happens. If I had to point a few tendencies I have on my saves:

*Avoid signing the same players over and over in different saves.
*Avoid signing the popular wonderkids everybody signs.
*Sign players on a free or transfer listed for cheap because hell yeah I love a good deal.
*Don't get too obsessed in signing hot prospect over hot prospect without even seeing the current player get to full potential.

[Shrabon]

Start with sunday league,no badges. Also, I never play with real players. Because I am never gonna be a football manager irl  

[Impacto]

1 hour ago, Shrabon said:

Start with sunday league,no badges. Also, I never play with real players. Because I am never gonna be a football manager irl  

Why not? If you really want it bad, you should go for it. You can get started in many ways. Sure it's really hard, but you should do everything you can to make it a reality!

On topic :

 My rules are flexible, as I like to try out different stuff. But when I'm going for realistic and challenging save(as much as the easy AI allows it), I do this:

- No player search. I only sign players that my scouts recommend. I am allowed to shortlist them however if they've been recommended before and I can use the shortlist when I need to.

- No exploits - anything that is unrealistic and potentially exploiting the AI could ruin a save for me, so I avoid it as best as I can. For example - using the Adjust Budget option. I may only use it when it's a really small difference and it makes sense. But otherwise I cannot touch it. Buying players outside of transfer windows. I only jump in if the AI makes a bid first. Otherwise they don't compete even if they want the player. I've gotten crazy deals in April before and I think that's a bit exploitive.

- Don't cheat on players - this is more of an immersion rule. For example, I recently gave Ramsey a new contract. He wanted really low wage and I couldnt just make myself give him a bigger one for no reason. So I decided that in order to make sense, we have an agreement to sell him if anyone bids for him a decent fee. I put notes on players for such situations in case I forget. I also try to stay loyal to legendary players instead of just selling them when they reach 30+ years. 

- Absolutely no save scumming! Whatever happens, happens. Live with it. 

- Don't use exploitive tactics. Good tactics are fine, like Ozil's on this forum and I love using them. Sometimes I use ME exploiting tactics in certain saves, but they are created to purely have fun with weird stuff and test the game's limits. I don't ever use them in "realistic saves". 

- Stick to club visions/philosophies. Don't go over the wage and transfer budgets. 

- Don't remove % of future sales when buying a player. 

Those are my rules on the top of my head. 

[HawaiianHippo]

I used to have this idea where, no matter what club I'd be at, I'd never spend over £20 million. I still have yet to break that on any 'serious' saves where I will be at a club over 1 season.

[onionbag]

I only used 'mixed' for all set pieces, especially corners and throws so that I do not find an 'exploit' that works an inordinate amount of the time. I recall back for like FM 08 or 09 if you set your CB to challenge keeper he would score 20 goals a season off of corner kicks and since then I will only use mixed.

Edited September 3, 2020 by onionbag

[IbrahimAliMaher]

As I enter into my tenth season of management in my FM19 game, this is also the first in which I've been in the Champions League (I started out as a LLM). As a result I insist on playing the CL anthem ahead of kick off for every match.

I think I would probably apply the same principle if I became an international manager, and play the national anthem before kick off (certainly for competitive matches).

[xavierm]

I want to build a club based on youth development, so my rules are the following : 

- First team with 22 players max including at least 7 homegrown players

- If I can't comply with first rule, I must increase each year by one the amount of homegrown players in the first team.

- If I have a good young player in a position, can't buy a non-homegrown player at this position unless it's a star player (3,5 stars and more)

Next rule to implement : the 6+5 with 5 nation grown players in the starting 11.