Help with motivation to play journeyman instead of staying 20+ years in a team

[Icy]

I'm currently playing a game with Crewe. I started in 2023 in the league two and did the usual path. Back to back promotions to the premier, struggle a little and then dominate in the local and in the continental competitions. I have a team full of wonderkids, with an average age of 23 or less, on cheap contracts and overperforming, the best league staff, top facilities, new stadium, etc. 

While it's been fun, at some point even with LLM house rules it becomes too easy to get all these wonderkids and a tactic that works. So now that the great Daveincid realistic megapack is more matured, I'm thinking about starting a different style game. A journeyman switching teams every year or two, so I can't work that much on youth setups and instead need to face a new challenge with each new team, rebuilding the team, adapting my tactics to the available players etc and with more urgency and pressure to get results now. 

My problem is that I get too attached to the teams and players I manage, so I find it really difficult to leave them both on the good and bad times. I tend to play more like that I'm the team than that I'm the manager.

How do you guys approach such game styles? how do you find the motivation? what kind of house rules do you set yourself? when do you force yourself to move team? Any good career update thread in the forums to read about it and get ideas?

I'm heavily into roleplay so maybe I can come with a good background story and try to stick to it, like for example I'm a defensive first coach like old Mourinho and set that style to any team I go, or the other way around, stick to each team traditional style of play and work on such tactics instead of falling back to the ones I know that work in FM24, etc. Any tips?

Thanks in advance!

Edited March 27 by Icy

[Little Miss Lump Kicker]

There's a good streamer called DeeBoiyPlays who's doing an around the Mediterranean save on twitch. It kind of always stuck with me, but especially stuck today when he talked about going to a new team, and I looked it up on wikipedia and it was in a beautiful city (Valencia.)

I think you're correct that you need to roleplay it. You need a reason for your manager to go to new places.  Apart from that I'd say give up easily. If something isn't challenging you or entertaining you after 3 months of the season decide then and there you're leaving at the end of the season, and stick to it.

I do get the urge to stick to one club, though. It seems some people are built that way. Maybe don't fight it? FM is a game you play for yourself, and there's lots of ways of playing. Do what you enjoy, but equally try new things in case it turns out you like them.

[phnompenhandy]

"House rules" is the way to go. Over a dedicated ago, I abandoned the regular game for LLaMa. As you say, that can quickly get too easy due to poor  AI squad building and the ability of LLaMas to purchase players too good for the level. So over the last few years I've combined LLaMa with Youth (Academy) - Only challenges. That is, you cannot buy or acquire ANY player who does not come through your youth academy. Given that at LLaMa level your facilities are minimal, and you have no money to upgrade, it is proper difficult!

It's best as a one-club career. Don't get attached to the players as if they're any good they'll get poached, but you can become a club legend over time.

 

EDIT: I just noticed who the poster is above me - his lower league file would be a great place to start! The Editors Hideaway is a great place for people like me who find the 6th tier not 'lower league' enough

Edited March 28 by phnompenhandy

[Spallo]

But he specifically had asked about a journeyman save and not LLM in another way. But it’s funny - I plan to start on lvl 20 in England with some house rules and made the setup yesterday 
 

regarding the question - you have to have a little backstory and start from there. I had a journeyman save back in the day (with a huge custom database wit about 150 countries) where I started as a rly young Cuban manager - Oscar pereira was his Alias. He had a hometown and started to manage from there, got poached with a massive offer from a big club in Honduras, got from there to Mexiko, won the league once and got immediately in the MLS because of the money. His family in Cuba was set for life at this point but he was eager for trophies. 
 

the MLS adventure was a disaster though. In two seasons high expectations but no results. But with the fond time in Mexiko and an Job interest from one of their biggest clubs he got back there and after three years he won the concacaf CL and it was again time to move on - now europe was interested. 
 

I think you get the point - set a motivation and a backstory for your manager and I would recommend starting with no badges. And revisit your former clubs or players from time to time. I got so attached to my stepping stone club in Honduras, that I watched matches from them regularly. So you can live that too 

have fun with your save 

Edited March 28 by Spallo

[Little Miss Lump Kicker]

On 28/03/2024 at 02:19, phnompenhandy said:

EDIT: I just noticed who the poster is above me - his lower league file would be a great place to start! The Editors Hideaway is a great place for people like me who find the 6th tier not 'lower league' enough

Ha! Thanks for this! It's her* though, a rare enough beast in FM, although hopefully getting better with the next release.

I think all the ideas about stories and motivations are right. What I didn't say about DeeBoi's stream is that there's just something cool about visiting nice cities all around the med. Maybe manage in towns or cities you've been to, or want to go to? Go on a tour of the Baltics. Spend your time in the sun somewhere? Go between teams that have the same sponsors? Try to win all the top level cups in South America? Or in Britain and Ireland?

[phnompenhandy]

3 hours ago, Little Miss Lump Kicker said:

Ha! Thanks for this! It's her* though, a rare enough beast in FM, although hopefully getting better with the next release.

I think all the ideas about stories and motivations are right. What I didn't say about DeeBoi's stream is that there's just something cool about visiting nice cities all around the med. Maybe manage in towns or cities you've been to, or want to go to? Go on a tour of the Baltics. Spend your time in the sun somewhere? Go between teams that have the same sponsors? Try to win all the top level cups in South America? Or in Britain and Ireland?

Sorry about that - your avatar threw me.

I'm big on the motivation you stress here - my last tho campaigns, narrated here

THORFINN – A Sporting and Social Revolution Begins

A Highlands & Islands Journey

are as much travelogues around my beloved Highlands and Islands of Scotland as FM careers.

 

You could just as easily narrate a journeyman career around the South Pacific or Caribbean as you could a one-club save around the Hellenic League or Norwegian Third tier.

You don't have to post a thread - you can indulge your OCD by googling the stadium and history of every opponent you face, stuff like that.

 

[Taipan]

There was a brilliant long thread in the now long deleted LLM Managers forum by LFCFAN where Pete did a journeyman world LLM tour. I'm sure it was on the Hall of Fame, but I just checked and it's not there? Guess when they deleted the LLM forum area, they deleted the thread as well.

[Sir_Liam]

I nearly always do one club saves where I try to take a lower league team in a country to the top, and I'm also one that generally finds it difficult to leave clubs.  On FM2021 I did do a journeyman save though which put me in a situation where I did have to decide to leave clubs.

That meant moving away from a focus of retaining my job no matter what and only thinking about the club, and instead doing what I could to grow my manager's reputation and make me more attractive to club's further up the food chain.

For example at one club the chairman told me that my performance hadn't been good enough (I wasn't in danger of the sack though).  I disagreed and subsequently resigned in protest, whereas in a one club save I would have smoothed things over.  I also found that once I'd got into the habit of leaving clubs it got easier.

I also got the DoF to do the transfers which made things harder and also brought in another reason to leave a club if I felt the DoF wasn't able to bring in the right players or move on ones I didn't want.  I will admit that I did allow myself to step in if the DoF was doing something particularly crazy though and I did do the odd signing myself.

Finally I started in a league so bad (Somalia) that you'd never ever want to stay there too long.  That meant that it wasn't a difficult decision to leave my first club.  That set the ball rolling in terms of getting in the mindset of leaving clubs.

My only other advice is don't do international management, atleast until you have a world class reputation.  On FM2021 it artificially boosted your reputation to the point that it made it too easy to get better jobs.  I'm not sure if that's still the case though as I haven't done international management since.

[Overmars]

I roleplay being offended/annoyed by my board. Some reasons:

1. They pay me the lowest wage of anyone in the league. This almost always happens after promotion, and it winds me up!
2. They block a transfer or force a sale I don't want. Can't wait to speak to the press about that one.
3. They reject my requests. Don't they know who I am?
4. They set ridiculously low wage and transfer budgets. Their lack of ambition is a waste of my time.

I also like taking on financially distressed clubs or clubs deep in a relegation battle and in hopeless form. Scraping a point with a terrible team is a different experience from winning games 5-0 with a team of underpaid wonderkids.