biffykins

Even though Brexit has been in a couple of FMs now this iteration is the first that has pretty much ruined my enjoyment of the game. Playing as Elgin City I've been promoted to League 1 in Scotland. A chance to perhaps scour the market a bit and get a young , or old, foreign player or two in to bolster the ranks. After all, the pool of talent in Scotland is pretty limited. Instead, the Brexit roll for my game is similar to one a couple of others have in that it requires all foreign Youth players to have a minimum salary of 3,000 per week and anyone for the first team to have 8,000 per week. In the Scottish League 1 where the average wage budget for a club is about 6-8k. I understand that FM wants to simulate the real world, but there is a point where this becomes a bit too impactful on the "fun" element of gameplay. In this case, there is 1 player outside of Celtic + Rangers that earns 8,000 per week in Scotland and for many teams the top earner is on less than half that amount. So, short of massive wage inflation, no team outside of the Old Firm will be able to sign a first-team foreign player based off these salary restrictions, rendering the other restriction of 17 foreign players pretty much obsolete. I find it hard to believe that the league would allow such restrictions to be implemented given the massive impact it would have in widening the gulf further that exists between those two and the rest of the league. Surely there would be an exemption put in place or even a scaling system given the limited resources compared to, say, the English leagues. A better solution would be just to make Brexit have the 17 FP limit, keep it at that for everyone and avoid random outcomes that are poorly implemented to the point where they break the game design. The moment I saw these restrictions I felt like quitting and starting over. I played out to the end of the season to get the promotion but my interest in continuing is virtually nil and I'll probably move on to another save, or game.

Cheers!

The game doesn't seem to recognise .tac files from the beta. Is this intentional?

Great opening to the thread and like the touch you did with the budgets I started a game in the Beta and signed de Ligt from Ajax to come in as a CB, letting Klavan go to Spurs, with the net cost being about 9M which isn't too bad. Trying to get one of Rugani and Tah to join as the next piece of business but they are both around the 30M mark. Central midfield also could use a more defensive player, a lot of formations around at the moment look to require a more pragmatic, physical presence than we have.

I like the introduction of this, definitely will make those first couple of years more important in terms of getting (young) players in prior to any change.

Yes, on the setup page where you select the leagues there is a box you can expand that has all the usual options for things like disabling first transfer window and removing attribute masking.

He is jinxed in the game. In 2 seasons for me he was hardly every 100%. I sold him to Spurs in early July 2016. At the end of July he fractures his arm - out 4 weeks - then no sooner is he back then Spurs lost him for another month with a broken wrist. Edit - A week after coming back from the wrist injury he has a hernia and is out for 4-5 weeks. I think there should be a challenge mode in FM where the goal is have Lallana play 30 games in a season.

I really like the new way of switching between teams you manage. I just became manager of France and on the day itself I was like "umm where are the options to see my French team" but as soon as I advanced up popped the icon in the top menu bar. Makes it so easy to change to the French squad rather than going through drop down menus

I find Lallana quite effective when played, but he is just injured so much to the point he hardly ever is able to get 100%. He starts off injured and in my game has picked up 7 injures in the course of 1.5 seasons, all but one of them being 2 weeks + out.

I don't think you can fit them. In the 3-1 using your suggested formation you could try playing Sturridge (lw) - coutinho (cam) - Sterling (rw) with Balotelli ahead, leaving you Markovic and Lallana as back-ups / rotation options. The only problem with that is Markovic seems to be one of the better players in the game this year, but as with the current real-life Liverpool team there is no good way to feature them all unless you use regular rotation.

4.49 Euro it cost last year

Not being able to directly ask someone to tutor (in case I've missed the option in the menu re-jig) is a bit annoying, especially when one of the most enjoyable aspects of the game is the focus on developing & realising the potential of young talent. I know the option can come through backroom advice but it isn't quite the same. Transfers continue to be a bit on the weird side. I'm at the end of Season 1 and I want to buy Jonathan Silva. He currently has a value of 350k, plays for Sporting B and had a solid but unspectacular season. I know that he is one of the most promising talents in the game but Sporting are rejecting bids of 20M + add-ons and want in excess of 40M for him. This just seems unrealistic for a player that has no international caps, no u20 caps, no proper first-team appearances in Europe, is classed as a "back-up" in squad status and plays a defensive position. On the other side I have a midfielder - Emre Can - valued at 24M who had a great first season and is still far from realising his full potential. PSG want to buy him and their initial offer is 15M. I'm sure I can bump up the price, but why would the AI of the game expect a bid so much under value to be successful when a bid so much over value is deemed unacceptable to it?

Some nice buys there, my Porto supporting friend IRL tells me Alex Sandro is the pick of their defenders. I tried to buy him in my game at the end of Season 1 only to find he'd gone elsewhere already

Congrats on the title win I've not played much the past few days but I'm keeping this tactic as one of two that I use in the game, this one being the more defensive for those games where that is appropriate. I'll generally swap in some less attacking wide players - for example Henderson in the RM position instead of Sterling - to give a bit more solidity.

Interesting that you mention Cissokho, he was a really good performer for me in Season 1. I would have possibly tried to buy him but wanted to go for youth and Shaw.