[Lines and Diamonds: The Tactician's Handbook for Football Manager 2015]

Duty mainly affects in-possession positioning and attacking movement, moreso than mentality. The most basic definition of defensive football is that it's a style where the team is concerned with keeping its defensive shape, even when it attacks (primarily as a means of preventing counterattacks). Similarly, the most basic definition of attacking football is that it's a style where the team is happy to encourage mobility across all positions and keep numbers forward in attacking positions even when the team is forced onto the backfoot. Attacking football, then, exhibits less concern with being hit by counterattacks, and to some extent, it may even invite counterattacks since encouraging an opponent to transition quickly will typically see them lose the ball more quickly. Within the AI's tactical logic, a team that increases mentality becomes less concerned with defensive shape and just throws more numbers in the attacking third with greater urgency, and a team that decreases mentality becomes increasingly concerned with defensive shape and typically locks down the defence and midfield in two rigid lines. Since the drop in mentality also sees a reduction of urgency in initiating the attacking phase, this often results in the defensive AI trying to hold onto the ball deep as much as it can.

Now, the interpretative issue here is that shape is ultimately controlled more via duty than mentality. Though mentality does affect certain baseline settings, these can be modified via TIs to the point where its most noticeable effect is the urgency of build up play. This is why, wwfan for example, found that using very attacking TIs and duty distribution combined with a lower mentality more accurately produced the more patient yet quite attacking style of some top professional sides that had players with sufficient technical skill and vision to break down defences without having to rely on urgent transitions and bombarding the box with crosses.

The latter approach isn't inherently wrong or illogical, it just reflects that the basic AI logic doesn't encompass every tactical philosophy, and since the AI is tuned to fight the AI with the AI's attacking being designed to counter the AI's defensive and vice-versa, this means users who step outside that framework can potentially find tactical advantages that work to their benefit.

THOG, I just wanted to say that this post really helped me understand better what kind of style I wanted to play and how to better achieve it. After making a few tweaks, my team played much closer to the way I wanted. Basically, I was playing a 433 with standard mentality hoping for the F9 to drop, the CM(A) to dart into the box, the IF cut in, and get a nice through ball to whoever was unmarked. I was also hoping for some decent counterattacks, but those were not very effective for me. After reading your post, it inspired me to up the mentality to Control (and Attacking) and make my support winger a Ramdeuter. Now, my attacking players are really attacking. It is fast paced, so it can be sloppy at times (I have a fast, but not extremely technical team), but my CM(A) is blazing past my F9 now for CCCs, my IF(A) is already in position for far post crosses, and the Ramdeuter is a major goal scoring threat. I'm sure I'll need to do some more tinkering (I may be a little too aggressive), but I like the patterns, movement, and urgency that I'm seeing right now. Thanks for such a simple post that really helped me.

[Quickfire Questions and Answers Thread (Tactic and Training Questions Only)]

I can't find which thread I read it in, but how does the number of attack duty players relate to mentality for the AI? I am playing a team that changes its duties and roles several times per game but seems to keep 2 or 3 attack duties. Does that mean they are playing counter or standard? They are extremely aggressive, so I think they are using an attacking mentality, but I thought I read that the AI uses more attack duties the higher the mentality and less on the lower mentalities.

[Quickfire Questions and Answers Thread (Tactic and Training Questions Only)]

Hey guys, sorry if this has been asked before.

I want to hard code 'mark specific player' into my tactic so that i don't have to do it before each game, but i can't find where i can do that! Can anybody help?

Thanks!

If you set your man marking and then save your tactic during a match, that saved tactic will have the man marking "hard coded" into it. Just remember to actually load the saved tactic after the game.

[Quickfire Questions and Answers Thread (Tactic and Training Questions Only)]

When the GK hoofs the ball forward, what attributes come into play to actually win those balls in the midfield? Is it jumping, bravery, aggression, strength or some combination of those? The AI presses the GK and d-line a lot of the time so I struggle with "distribute to defenders", and I am forced to abandon that and just kick. The AI is so aggressive though, that if I don't win the ball, they are already counterattacking and my defense is in terrible position. I would like to start getting the appropriate attributes for my midfielders so I can start winning a lot more of these jump balls.

[Quickfire Questions and Answers Thread (Tactic and Training Questions Only)]

If I play a 4231 and switch to a 4123, is there a way to make the MCL switch to the DM spot? My game always makes the AMC switch to DM, and I have to manually switch them.