Overmars

I hope this is still a work in progress because it sounds great. In my opinion, stopping at Level 4 would still be a major win. A 4-tier Irish pyramid provides a nice game world.

I think you will find a lot of people disagree with that. I am one of them. I remember having fun with FM15 which had a similarly high-scoring match engine, but ultimately I was disappointed with how immersion-breaking it can be when you rarely see 1-0 or 0-0 scorelines.

It's not all about the player count. It's at least as important to consider how many active leagues you want and how detailed the simulation you will choose for those leagues. The more leagues you sim on full detail, the slower your game will run, but full detail is really nice to keep your most important leagues feeling as realistic as possible. And yes, playable/view only below is exactly as you described it. Generally speaking, view only leagues aren't going to slow you game down much at all, so when I add a playable league I will also add the leagues below it as view only. It's the number of playable leagues, the amount on full sim detail, and the player count that really affect speed. For a European save based in England, I would usually go with the following playable leagues: ENG - top 6 levels (full sim at least the top 2 levels) GER - top 2 levels (full sim the top level) ESP - top 2 levels (full sim the top level) ITA - top 2 levels (full sim the top level) FRA - top 2 levels (full sim the top level) NED - top level POR - top level AUT - top level SUI - top level BEL - top level GRE - top level TUR - top level CZE - top level CRO - top level DEN - top level NOR - top level You might also consider loading the top league as playable in Serbia, Sweden, Poland, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, Slovakia, Hungary etc., if your system is fast. Some might want to load Brazil and Argentina's top leagues as playable, though I find there are still plenty of South American wonderkids available for scouting without loading those leagues. One extra thing I do, though, is to add players from every continent who possess a continental reputation.

I manage in Europe and load nations where I want the biggest clubs to have complete/active squads in continental competitions. Since Russia got banned from continental competitions, I haven't bothered to load them and don't miss them.

I like the player interactions in the sense that they offer some necessary checks and balances in the game. For example, if you sell a popular teammate then you should hear about it from your best players. I don't want to feel as if I am managing faceless robots. That said, the interactions need to be more logical. No one should be getting upset about selling a backup who has no clout within the team. The press conferences -- I leave those for my assistant because they are genuinely tedious.

You chose Celtic, who have won 11 of the last 12 league titles and finished +80 in goal differential last year. If you didn't find it easy then FM wouldn't be simulating very well.

Lots of options. If you prefer a 4-3-3 formation then I would use: DM = Stay at home DM = AM(d) or HB(d) or DM(d) or BWM(d) CM = Playmaker = AP(s) or RPM(s) CM = Runner = CM(a) or BBM(s) -- You could use a second playmaker here if you really wanted to. For a 4-2-3-1, I would use either: DM = Holding midfielder = A(D) or DM(d) or BWM(d) DM = Playmaker = DLP(s) or RPM(s) or REG(s) AM = Aggressive secondary scoring option = SS(a) or AM(a) Or: DM = Holding midfielder = A(D) or DM(d) or BWM(d) DM = Runner = SV(a) AM = Playmaker = AP(s) Ultimately, your midfielders are only going to deliver a lot of good through balls if they have the appropriate traits and attributes. Even then, they require a lot of good off the ball movement from the front three and a cooperative opponent who isn't just sitting back conservatively.

It would be nice if we could prioritize or sort our preferences of delivery in order -- just like the way the player role selection is done for set pieces. That way we might see something like 60% near post, 30% far post, 10% central.

Yes, most clubs, but especially newly promoted clubs, are far too inactive in the transfer market. The big immersion breaker for me is when the game shows me a graph of the number of transfers by club for a given transfer window and most of the transfers were made by me. Established clubs can hang on to their quality for a few seasons before their best players deteriorate, but newly promoted clubs get relegated right after getting promoted. There are no Lutons or Bournemouths in the game.

I'd go as far as to say the vast majority of FM players really enjoy managing transfers. It's more fun to pick and choose who you want to buy/sell than it is to click "Encourage" or "Congratulations on scoring a goal." I bet almost every FM player is much more active with transfers than the AI is. That's the big difference. Humans make net positive deals constantly throughout a season, sometimes moving dozens of players in and out of the club. If AI teams did the same then they would be much better, the human managers would find it much tougher, and the game would feel completely ridiculous because the football world doesn't have anywhere near that much transfer activity in real life. If someone wants to add a bit of challenge to their save without going too extreme then I would suggest limiting the number of transfers per season.

A 4-4-1-1 looks very different from a 4-2DM-3-1 in FM, but in real life it would be hard to differentiate between the two. Frankly, I think the 4-2DM-3-1 in game is the better representation of what real clubs actually use. That said, if the formation is truly "the shape of the team when defending" then we should be seeing flatter formations (flat back 5s, two flat rows of 4, flat front 3s, etc.). In general, a back 3/5 is not used enough in FM.

I wish FM would handle promotion finances better. I just got promoted to the French 2nd tier. We have 2.5 million in the bank: Team wage budgets range from 2.9M to 13.1M. They've given me a wage budget of 0.7M. Every manager earns 4,000 or more per week. They are offering me 725 per week. All of my starting players are asking for new contracts, with the minimum they are asking for being 2.5k per week. My 15k per week budget means I can't keep any of them. My board sold one of my brightest prospects because the offer was too good to turn down. We got 400 pounds for him and a promise for a friendly.

It's much easier to score in FM with an AF (or two) in the team. The game presents so many opportunities to strikers playing for through balls. You just don't get those same opportunities for AML/AMR players looking to do the same. Also, even if your support striker does his job, he'll drop into "poor form" if he doesn't score for a few games in a row, and that will tank his performance for the next few matches. If you want the game to feel easier, try a 2-striker tactic or at least an AF in a solo striker tactic.

For human-controlled clubs, no. I would guess that the overwhelming majority of people playing this game want to handle transfers themselves rather than be dictated to by a board or director of football. I think I'd go crazy if I had to beg the board or the DOF to make each transfer that I wanted.

Wingbacks -- Playing them in the back line makes them have to run more than usual, and I find they don't quite get forward as often as I would want. I see them being more effective out of the DM strata. The downside is that positional familiarity can sometimes be tougher to find in this spot, but I'm usually willing to take the hit in order to get them producing more offense. Midfielders -- I would rather use a triangle than a flat 3 option. The flat 3 is okay at providing support to the front line but doesn't do a great job of shielding the defense. I find the 2 DM + 1 AMC option works great. I like that the AMC provides a third attacking presence, better pressing, and an easier link-up to a DLF or TF. Another triangle option is 1 DM + 2 MC, and that also works well. The 1 DM can serve as a key link between defense and attack, while the 2 MCs can be mezzalas, floating into open spaces where appropriate. In general, I like how DMs work in FM23 much better than MCs, so I prefer the 3-4-1-2 option. Attackers -- I like the TF idea. If you're going to do it, I would want a fast strike partner with him and maybe even an on-rushing AMC. My favourite thing about TFs is that they you can find some really cheap ones in the game with incredible aerial attributes, which is nice if you're on a budget. You also get an extra set piece threat in case your central defenders aren't aerial beasts.

It's been happening to me on 2D too. Pretty frustrating since this has never happened to me on prior FMs. Hope FM24 doesn't have such issues.

Yo-yo clubs. There are too many of them. AI clubs tend not to evolve over time. 20 seaons from now, I still expect Bournemouth to be bouncing back and forth between the top two tiers of England, while few clubs rise up or drop down multiple levels. I would love to see AI clubs become a bit more volatile to make the game less predictable.

AF is the way to go and has been for a while with FM. If you are going to use an AP at AML then I think you need a CM(a) in midfield or an inside forward getting into the box on the right side.

3060 here, but I have the same issues. I spent a few days exploring possible fixes, tried a bunch of things, and then just gave up on it. I didn't buy the game to troubleshoot it. I save much more frequently now and endure the annoying crashes.

In my opinion, individual player form is very powerful in this game. If a player goes 6.3-6.4-6.5-6.3 then you know his next match is most likely to be similarly poor, no matter what his attributes are. After years of complaining about it, I've learned to just go with it and select my team primarily based on form. I really wish player performance from match to match felt more random.

One little thing I'd like to see improve is for players who are "Extremely interested" in joining your club to actually be willing to join your club when you put in bids for them. I'm not sure why the filter exists if it's just going to be completely wrong.

It probably isn't tactical. I would guess that either your GK is poor for the level or dropped into some inexplicably poor form for an extended period of time. It also could just be bad luck, though that differential is very high. Keep in mind that you scored 23 more goals than xG would imply you should have scored. Your goalscorers are probably well above average, and you probably had your fair share of good attacking luck.

Even if I disagree with fining players in real life, this is a game mechanic that if you don't leverage will really cost you. Nearly every player will drop into a run of poor form in a season, and verbal warnings are generally met with no improvement. So unless you like watching players drop a 6.3-6.4 for a month of games, you are encouraged to use the fining system to "solve" the problem.

You have three options here: Use the pre-game editor and edit advanced rules for the nation and leagues in which you want to play. This takes a bit of work to get right, especially if you start from scratch, but there is usually someone out there who has an edited file to share that can serve as a great starting point. Then you simply need to edit the squad registration rules of that file as you see fit. You can choose to manage in nations with few (if any) squad registration rules. The top leagues in Portugal, the Netherlands, and Denmark come to mind. France, Spain, and Germany are also very loose with their rules. The only challenge you would then have is registering enough players for international competitions such as the Champions League. Accept the challenge and prioritize home-grown talent in your transfer dealings.

It's true. We can be paralyzed by the overwhelming amount of variety of setups. I think the biggest issue, though, is that the game itself provides feedback in the form of stars and estimated game speed -- and it's inaccurate. My half-star setup this year is much faster than any 2 or 3-star setup I've had in the past. I'd like to see that feedback adjusted for FM24 so that it factors in amount of playable leagues instead of relying so heavily on player counts.