Kawee

With my new job, I am always on the road (more so than I am at home, easily 200 days away a year) so naturally, I would like to play some FM while I'm on the road. Unfortunately, due to expenses back home, I can't afford an expensive one. Is it possible for a 200-300$ laptop to run an FM game? If so, is there any recommendation?

Couldn't you play away at a big club? You get paid a small sum, but you have far less expenses to pay,

I always just assumed that the way to get a squad of players willing to die for each other is longevity, success, and personal relationships. The first two is easy enough to obtain, keep the same players and win things. The third sometimes come naturally, but quire often, I manufacture it with tutoring as well. I have no idea if it actually helps with team cohesion though. Just my intuition.

Nah, I'm 8 years old, so I'm downvoting this for lack of pictures and dank memes

If I had to hazard a guess, it'd be a very cautious tactic in a formation with lots of buildup triangle (possibly 4-1-4-1) against a team he's much better than (so his players are also quite good) playing very cautious against him as well. So most of the game, it'd be his midfielders and defenders passing the ball to each other, as the opponents just sit back and watched.

For sure, there should be more tactical options for positioning. An example is a midfield 4 where the wide players tuck in defensively, almost like 4 CMs, but go very wide as wingers during attack. That should be possible if you have the players for it, but it is not, currently.

Very interesting because the AI has never failed to leave +1 defenders against me. Can you try having one player outside the box? Maybe the AI considers a playmaker outside the box who can launch counter-attacking passes the key reason for whether they consider your men are threatening or not. I thought for sure my experience is universal because I've literally never seen the AI not react the way I described.

How many did you leave forward? The reason AI leaves 4 back against me is because I leave 3 players forward when defending. In my experience, the AI is hardwired to be defensive by going x+1 against the human players, x being the amount of players you leave forward. Try leaving 2-3 players forward as your default corner defending setup and see if the AI still only leave 1-2 players back.

No. The AI is hardwired to be conservative, so they leave 4 players behind.

I get a number of counter-attacks every year with defending corners by putting my best passer outside the box, and leaving my three best attackers, preferably with pace, up front. If my passer can win the 2nd ball, he an easily launch a counter-attack.

He's not though. His defensive record is good, but that's because he's using the high press, which is overpowered once again, although not as bad as in FM16.

If you're committed to this tactic, you should focus more on what you see happening on the virtual field. If you want, actually craft a reply by detailing all the things you don't like seeing from your tactic, by using screenshots of the 2D pitch and maybe some statistical analysis. That'll allow people to pinpoint things you can do to improve. For example, taking screenshot of what happens when your DLP has the ball. What kind of movement are the other players making? What do you want changed? Interesting you'd say that because on the front page there is a thread that details a tactic, which does a very good job of exploiting the ME. It has a back-3, with a libero, and no FBs/WBs. You can check it out:

You could also go back to the 80s and do the Zona Mista.

My rule of thumb is to have 3 primary goal-scorers and 1 semi-scorer. Of the 3, I usually have 2 runners and 1 for attacking crosses. Make sure that your runners attack from different angles, and if possible, at different timings as well. I almost always include at least one runner from deep, usually the semi-scorer in the form of a central midfielder, either on support or attack (depending on the tactic) with 'Get Forward Often.'

Great read that. Always enjoy a good read on unconventional tactics.