I've been lurking on this forum for a while now and I thought it was about time I got involved. And what better way than with my first post.
As the title says, I'm looking for any ideas to increase the length of managing big clubs without getting bored. I like building clubs up from the lower leagues, but I never manage to go beyond a few years when managing Manchester United. Although rebuilding Manchester United in real life is proving to be a never-ending task (manly because the club is run by dummies!), rebuilding them in FM is not the most difficult of challenges. I find it just too tempting to fill my team with wonderkids etc. and then start to lose interest when the trophies start rolling in.
I recently tried a journeyman save where I took over at Crewe around October in my first season. Got them up the championship within 5 years. Left for Leicester and got them into Europe. After 6/7 seasons I'd say 75% of United's first team players were worth over £70m and they had 5 or 6 elite wingers!
One of my favourite parts of FM is team building and developing young players, so I want to continue that. But I feel I need to impose some restrictions to make the game more challenging and last longer but also make it fun. I'll probably have a go at a youth academy challenge one of these days with United, but I do miss buying players in those types of saves. I'm not a big fan of making tactics so I tend to download them and them make subtle tweaks.
So what I've come up with so far is a sort of half-way house approach. I'm thinking of starting a new United save with the following rules/restrictions:
1. Starting 11 (from the get go) must include 6 or more academy graduates and subs bench must also be made up of at least 50% academy graduates.
2. Every year that I win a champions league, I must increase the staring 11 academy graduates requirement by 1 until I reach a total of 8 of the starting 11.
3. Whilst affiliates are allowed to try and get better youth players, 50% of the academy graduates used in the starting 11 / my entire squad must be British or Irish.
4. Must maintain having the youngest average age squad in the Prem.
A few points I'm undecided on:
1. Do you think the save would become too easy if I allowed myself to poach youngsters (thinking 15 or 16 years old only) to pass off as my own academy players. I mean in real life United (and other clubs do this all the time). Hell, nearly half of the United startling 11 that recently won the youth cup were poached from other teams. In the past, Giggs started off at City and went to United at 14. Beckham started at Spurs. Kane at Arsenal, Rice at Chelsea etc. Maybe I could limit myself to only one or two a season or maybe I can only poach other youngsters if they have United listed as a favoured club or a current/past United player listed as their idol in the game? Or maybe I can poach anyone, but I have to meet financial targets, (point 3, below) like trying to replace the £1b spent on transfers over 10 years etc.
2. What about introducing some mechanics to force me to sell players? Such as having a director of football in charge of selling players so I might lose some of my talented youngsters? or maybe having a rule such as accepting all offers from top foreign clubs (Bayern, PSG, Madrid, Barca etc.) for all non-British or Irish players? Perhaps when I receive an offer for any player, I do some sort of dice roll as to whether they stay or want to go, kind of like Beckham/Ronaldo to Madrid. Its a shame that loyalty is a hidden stat. Maybe I could assign a random loyalty rating to each youth player and depending on that rating, I have to accept offers at different levels/percentages above their MV (e.g. the higher the loyalty rating, the higher the offer must be before I have to accept it). Maybe I have sell 3 or 4 first team regulars every few years or once I've won the CL to 'rebuild' the side as Fergie tended to do every 3-4 years.
3. I think I'll also set myself financial targets, like must have a positive net spend each season.
I'm trying to achieve some balance so its not too easy but not impossible to win titles and CLs and which still allows me to find hidden gems and keep the save fun. Any other ideas/suggestions welcome.
Yeah, I think just keeping to players found by the scouts might be a good one. I really like the idea of only scouting certain countries. I'm tempted to only scout nations of past players that I liked. Serbia for Vidic. S Korea for Park Ji-Sung etc.