Patterns of play

[Ein]

I think the tactics creator could be made less abstract (less dependent on mentalities, roles, etc). What would be helpful is the ability to create patterns of play and intertwine tactics with training to develop specific strategies. For instance, if you aim to attack in a certain way:

For example:
1. play out of defence (this would have its own pattern of play) until the ball reaches our designated midfield creator (say our #8).
2. When the ball reaches our #8, our LW (#11) should cut inside to overload the opposition defender (#5) with our CF (#9).
3a. If the opposition RFB (#2) does not follow our #11, pass the ball to either our #11 or #9 (the one farthest from their #5).
3b. If their #2 follows our #11 to prevent the overload, our LFB (#3) should bomb forward and our #8 should switch play to him.

And so on...

The higher the number of patterns of play, the more unpredictable your team will be. However, it will be more challenging for your players to remember and execute them successfully, depending on their technical abilities, mental attributes, player traits, team cohesion, etc. This approach integrates tactics, training, and one's managerial knowledge into a cohesive package.

AI managers would have preprogrammed patterns of play (based on real-life preferences) with some degree of flexibility (dropping and adopting new PoP over time), depending on tactical knowledge, adaptability, in-game performance, etc.

Of course it would still be possible to play without PoP if one chooses to. In that case, the players would be left to their own devices (as at present, essentially).

I think it could help the AI (if done correctly) because the moves would be more rule-bound, like chess.