Journeyman tips you wish you knew before

[Stookie]

Hi everyone, 

As the full version is out, I might start a journeyman save this evening. 

I know some of you have a lot of experience with this style of play. 

Have you got some advices or tips you wish you knew before? 

Thank you team

[deaks500]

My top tip for a journeyman save is make sure your adaptability rating for your manager attributes are as high as it can be (obviously this will depend on on your coaching badges/past experience) particularly if you want to move around countries.

 

 

[Stookie]

1 minute ago, deaks500 said:

My top tip for a journeyman save is make sure your adaptability rating for your manager attributes are as high as it can be (obviously this will depend on on your coaching badges/past experience) particularly if you want to move around countries.

 

 

I would like to start with no badge or football experience. If I boost my adaptability, won't the game be too easy?

[deaks500]

11 minutes ago, Stookie said:

I would like to start with no badge or football experience. If I boost my adaptability, won't the game be too easy?

The adaptability rating is how well you adapt to new environments/new countries and leagues, wouldn't say it makes the game easier though, maybe easier to move around clubs.

Also from a role play/realism point of view, if you want to switch and move countries , makes sense that you can adapt to them quickly is part of your manager skill set.

Good luck with it though, love a journeyman save and i too start with no badges/experience, it certainly limits which clubs will hire you, especially if you start unemployed.

[Stookie]

Thanks my man! 
What leagues would you recommend to load? What you'll be your Day 1 duties as a lower league manager? I'm trying to find a way not to miss anything for my start 

[phnompenhandy]

8 minutes ago, deaks500 said:

The adaptability rating is how well you adapt to new environments/new countries and leagues, wouldn't say it makes the game easier though, maybe easier to move around clubs.

Also from a role play/realism point of view, if you want to switch and move countries , makes sense that you can adapt to them quickly is part of your manager skill set.

Good luck with it though, love a journeyman save and i too start with no badges/experience, it certainly limits which clubs will hire you, especially if you start unemployed.

I'm a one-club man LLaMa myself, but I follow Journeyman saves on YouTube and in the Careers forum. I've never seen any evidence of a manager suffering due to poor Adaptability. What would be the clues? The Board wants to sack you because you're slow to pick up the language? Seriously though, has anyone experienced an issue because of Adaptability?

[Hovis Dexter]

The tool tip for adaptability when setting up your profile says something to the effect of the higher the manager's adaptability the more likely it is that a team in another country will employ him / her

 

EDIT It actually says "This affects the individual's chances of finding employment n a foreign league, and then whether or not they're likely to succeed there."

Edited November 8, 2022 by Hovis Dexter

[phnompenhandy]

9 minutes ago, Hovis Dexter said:

whether or not they're likely to succeed there

Right, this bit. Have you come across any personal or anecdotal evidence of a manager being affected by his low Adaptability? Short of some blatant comment from the board, would you notice poor Adaptability as a contributory cause to failing?

[Smurf]

One of the hardest journeyman saves I had was starting in South America, Peru. 

I wanted to work my way out of Peru, into Brazil, and then into Premiership.

It took me 36 seasons. 

When I got to Brazil the football never stopped, it was tournament after tournament after tournament. 
Crazy.

I think I ended up leaving Brazil league, where I had taken 3rd division team to top tier winners on everything.

Then eventually into Portugal, Germany, Italy and finally the premier league. 

I was exhausted after the experience in Brazil though.

[Stookie]

4 minutes ago, Smurf said:

One of the hardest journeyman saves I had was starting in South America, Peru. 

I wanted to work my way out of Peru, into Brazil, and then into Premiership.

It took me 36 seasons. 

When I got to Brazil the football never stopped, it was tournament after tournament after tournament. 
Crazy.

I think I ended up leaving Brazil league, where I had taken 3rd division team to top tier winners on everything.

Then eventually into Portugal, Germany, Italy and finally the premier league. 

I was exhausted after the experience in Brazil though.

This is exactly the adventure I am looking for. 
Tell me something you realize you did wrong at the start/something that you would do better please

Edited November 8, 2022 by Stookie

[ImDaWeasel]

Pick Spanish, Portuguese and Italian as other languages you speak.

[deaks500]

All the major Euro leagues as playable plus a couple of smaller ones like sweden, scotland, poland and belgium, (always down to the bottom playable league) the rest i put on view only but depends on where you want to manage and you can add/take away leagues as you progress through your career.

Day 1 for me is always look at the staff, you wont have many so you need them to cover as much as possible and try to get an assistant  with as high judge player ability rating as you can - for realism purposes, if you didn't want to search , place a job advert and hire the best person that applies.

For recruitment Trials are key at lower level management rather than scouting as your unlikely to have money to throw around at your first club.

And finally, for lower league management - always tracksuit manager - feels weird seeing managers in suites in the lower leagues lol

[Stookie]

1 minute ago, deaks500 said:

All the major Euro leagues as playable plus a couple of smaller ones like sweden, scotland, poland and belgium, (always down to the bottom playable league) the rest i put on view only but depends on where you want to manage and you can add/take away leagues as you progress through your career.

Day 1 for me is always look at the staff, you wont have many so you need them to cover as much as possible and try to get an assistant  with as high judge player ability rating as you can - for realism purposes, if you didn't want to search , place a job advert and hire the best person that applies.

For recruitment Trials are key at lower level management rather than scouting as your unlikely to have money to throw around at your first club.

And finally, for lower league management - always tracksuit manager - feels weird seeing managers in suites in the lower leagues lol

Thanks fellow manager.

I will start loading a lot of countries and will take away some when I'll be appointed to my new job. 

When do you guys recommend to start? I read Oct/Nov is a good pick since some managers are getting sacked and you don't have to handle the pre-season stuff. 

Please feel free to drop random tips/advice, I am trying to gather every relevant information I'm told.

Thanks again

[Stookie]

1 hour ago, ImDaWeasel said:

Pick Spanish, Portuguese and Italian as other languages you speak.

Exactly what I do, I was born French from a Portuguese mother and I am currently living in PT. France and Portugal definitely two nations I would like to settle in. 

[Dagenham_Dave]

1 hour ago, Stookie said:

Thanks my man! 
What leagues would you recommend to load? What you'll be your Day 1 duties as a lower league manager? I'm trying to find a way not to miss anything for my start 

Load as many leagues as you can when you first start (ignore the warnings), so you've got more choice to begin with. Once you then start to move around, you can then get rid of the leagues you know you'll never go to. Which will make the game run a bit faster as the seasons progress. By the time you get to the big clubs, your gameworld can then be minimised even further.  But I always have as many leagues as possible running at the start. 

Edited November 8, 2022 by Dagenham_Dave

[chewbaccaloveaddiction]

I start at the beginning of the season and holiday for a few months, in November I got a job in Serie C. If you want to go to south america you can do that in summer as their season starts earlier. If you like more rp or realism follow some of the rules lollujo uses for his save (link to his rules). Also I don't renew contracts until I find a club where I want to start a long term project, because I prefer having short term goals and want to move around as much as possible.

[Stookie]

Thanks for the tips man.

I will probably follow his rules as well, it seems to be the more realistic way to play for a journeyman save. I might also delegate recruitment to director of football but I am not sure because I am afraid he will bring **** players…

Managers, any great experience you had in a country not really well known for football? Any countries to recommend? 

 

 

 

Edited November 8, 2022 by Stookie

[Zapoleon]

3 hours ago, Stookie said:

I would like to start with no badge or football experience. If I boost my adaptability, won't the game be too easy?

I think so. It is very easy to speed run the coaching badges and become way too good at a lower level. Killed a few journeymen saves for me. So I like to take things slower.

[Wizard boy]

I’ve just started my journeyman save. Loaded up 12 leagues from around the world.  Chose professional footballer National level with continental c license.  Unfortunately though my adaptability is 6 so might have to start again. 

[fc.cadoni]

How to not increase debt and if it’s necessary make sure you are promoted to higher division. Give priority to league as an example and play young players for cups (especially the ones without money earning if you process). 

[eXistenZ]

general question. What is the opinion on attribute masking? A no or a yes. Or a no in normal careers but yes for journeyman

 

Offcours you cant know every player 100%, but on the other hand, getting some players 4leagues below  in your search results because his passing is somewhere between 8 and 16 is just unnecessary spam. And i feel the is already spamming you with agents trying to launder their players. "hey, you can sign this guy for just 2M". mate, 2m is 1/3rd of my yearly wage budget, get lost....

[Smurf]

8 hours ago, Stookie said:

This is exactly the adventure I am looking for. 
Tell me something you realize you did wrong at the start/something that you would do better please

I would have taken more jobs at higher reps teams. But I was determined to get promotion from lower leagues and work my way up.

But looking back you could probably take higher rep jobs and get to the top quicker.

[DrizzitD]

10 hours ago, eXistenZ said:

general question. What is the opinion on attribute masking? A no or a yes. Or a no in normal careers but yes for journeyman

 

Offcours you cant know every player 100%, but on the other hand, getting some players 4leagues below  in your search results because his passing is somewhere between 8 and 16 is just unnecessary spam. And i feel the is already spamming you with agents trying to launder their players. "hey, you can sign this guy for just 2M". mate, 2m is 1/3rd of my yearly wage budget, get lost....

Very much up to personal taste. Obviously using masking will make it harder so if you want more of a challenge go for it.

Personally I want to play lots of seasons in different leagues and find masking just makes my progress feel too slow for my taste so I dont use it. Its hard enough to find decent players who actually wants to join you in LLM even if you know their stats so adding a few extra hours of scouting to every season is just no fun for me.

I usually dont stay very long in every team though as I like the moving around part and i very rarely play in top teams/leagues so if you plan a take a small team to the top kind of play through it might get too easy once you start getting into the top levels. 

 

As for advice its been said before but make sure you load as many leagues as you can as playable. Will make it slower of course but gives you more options especially when you start out. If there are no lower leagues loaded you wont be getting any realistic job offers with 0 rep. The game will eventually shoehorn you into a team anyway in my experience but it doesnt make for a very good experience as no one will listen to you as they all got higher rep then you. 

[phnompenhandy]

^ Drizzit calls it right, for me. It's very much up to your personal goals. If your enjoyment comes from bombing around the world onwards and upwards, trying to win everything in sight, don't make it too hard for yourself.

I personally get bored with winning too easily, so have recently switched to making my challenges as tough as possible. Going without attributes is a big part of that. It leads to more immersion as you have to think longer and harder about your player choices and tactics. For me, that's greater realism.

[Wizard boy]

8 hours ago, phnompenhandy said:

^ Drizzit calls it right, for me. It's very much up to your personal goals. If your enjoyment comes from bombing around the world onwards and upwards, trying to win everything in sight, don't make it too hard for yourself.

I personally get bored with winning too easily, so have recently switched to making my challenges as tough as possible. Going without attributes is a big part of that. It leads to more immersion as you have to think longer and harder about your player choices and tactics. For me, that's greater realism.

Lollujo definitely keeps it real on his non league to legend career. 

[phnompenhandy]

1 minute ago, Wizard boy said:

Lollujo definitely keeps it real on his non league to legend career. 

  I've followed him over the last 2 years and am invested in his new Peterborough Sports journey.

I'm taking it few steps further though, combining it with FMLlama's rules about not brining in any new players - no transfers, loans or free agents. I can only replenish my squad with my academy intake.

[Wizard boy]

1 hour ago, phnompenhandy said:

  I've followed him over the last 2 years and am invested in his new Peterborough Sports journey.

I'm taking it few steps further though, combining it with FMLlama's rules about not brining in any new players - no transfers, loans or free agents. I can only replenish my squad with my academy intake.

Well that would certainly make it more challenging. It’s not something ever really tried but one day I might.

[el_manayer]

I always want to do a journeyman but never actually do it... just because I get too attached to the club and the players.  Do you have any advices to avoid that?  Also, I think a journeyman is cool if you play a lot of seasons and I play veeery slow... I played 400 hours in FM21 and it was all 10 seasons in a single club.

[phnompenhandy]

1 minute ago, el_manayer said:

I always want to do a journeyman but never actually do it... just because I get too attached to the club and the players.  Do you have any advices to avoid that?  Also, I think a journeyman is cool if you play a lot of seasons and I play veeery slow... I played 400 hours in FM21 and it was all 10 seasons in a single club.

Yeah, what I've always done is a Journeyman save without the journey (or rather, the journey is vertical)! I wait for the lower league add-ons to come out - Leo Messi's 10 levels in England on BHTFC Ben's 14, 20, or one year 24 tier English one. Or (my next save) Mozza's and others' 14 or so tiers in Scotland (and so on - they'll mostly be in the FM23 Editors' Hideaway in due course). Start at the very bottom - I often use the editor to stack my club with a squad of 15 year olds with CA1 and a random PA. It is a heck of a journey - I rarely ever get as far as league status in a year and only once ever got up to the Premier League.

[DrizzitD]

4 hours ago, el_manayer said:

I always want to do a journeyman but never actually do it... just because I get too attached to the club and the players.  Do you have any advices to avoid that?  Also, I think a journeyman is cool if you play a lot of seasons and I play veeery slow... I played 400 hours in FM21 and it was all 10 seasons in a single club.

It might not fit your play style but if you want to try it out as a learning experience I would set some rules for yourself.

I like moving around and i like the initial struggle to get a team going with what I got so I usually go by my own rule of not staying more then 1 -2 seasons no matter what. If I get offered a new position from another team I usually take it and If I havent been offered another job after 2 seasons I resign and start applying for new Jobs again. 

Can also help to speed up your play style a bit if you want that. Because you dont plan to stay more then 1 or 2 seasons theres alot of long term things you simply dont have to care about if you dont want too.

Youth facilities are bad, no problem i wont be here long enough to use those Youth players anyway. And 1 season loans are great, no need to work for that 3 year contract if you only plan to stay for 1 season and so on.

I kind of see myself as the temp short term solution to try and get the club going again. Once I do that im on to the next one... or i get fired trying, that happens 😁

In the end you will probably land somewhere in between the styles but it can be good to shake it up a bit to try new things. 

Edited November 9, 2022 by DrizzitD

[DasMagicMullet]

On 08/11/2022 at 09:29, Stookie said:

Hi everyone, 

As the full version is out, I might start a journeyman save this evening. 

I know some of you have a lot of experience with this style of play. 

Have you got some advices or tips you wish you knew before? 

Thank you team

I always start mine with National C licence and Sunday League footballer, but I do make my manager quite the polyglot by giving him a couple of extra languages that he can speak so that it's a bit easier to find work that isn't just tier 6 England.

I load up all European leagues, skip forward to mid-December of the first season, then I put myself back on holiday indefinitely but set it to apply for any jobs, it'll then cut back when an interview pops up.

At the end of the first season, I'll bin off probably half of the leagues to speed the game up. 

Also - Request coaching courses whenever you get a job.

Can't wait to start mine, might start it now and send it going in the background!

I started to document my journeyman last year, but then got COVID and lost all interest in pretty much everything for about a month, at which point it was too late to go back: 

 

I really did enjoy it though, even though I got relegated and sacked in my first 2 jobs. 

 

Edited November 9, 2022 by DasMagicMullet