qazwsx

Prepare to go through the same hell that real life managers go through every match. There are so many emotions and ups and downs when you follow the whole match and not just watching highlights. I normally watch the match with the speed a couple of notches above the midpoint.

One house rule I use during matches (I watch them in full) is that I am not allowed to change tactics unless there is a natural stop in the game... goal, player substitution ( for any team), injury (with physio entering the pitch) or a red card. That can be a bit painful when you start a match and immediately see something you would like to change but have to wait for one of those natural stops.

A few years ago I managed a club in the second division in Chile. The team was predicted to finish last in the league but half way through the season I was in first place and dominating. Of course it is fun to win but it felt a bit too easy. So I started to think what the reason of my success was and it was easy to find... I had signed 11 new players during offseason and when checking the other teams the average was about 2-3. I think squad building is what gives us the biggest edge versus the AI managers. So how to make the game harder? I started to use Action Points. When I am signed to a contract I receive 1 point for each day of the contract. If i sign a contract starting 1 July and it ends 30 June next year I will receive 365 points. In the case I would be fired I have to pay back points, if I am fired 100 days before my contract ends my AP-saldo is reduced with 100 points. If my AP-saldo should then go below zero it is game over, I would have to end the save. I have a list of actions that cost points... signing a player, either as a free agent or through a transfer from another club, will cost me 150 points, loaning a player for the full season cost 60 points, signing staff 10 points and so on. Resigning players and staff under contract cost no points. Neither do signing players from the youth intake. I may also earn points... selling a player will increase my saldo by 60 points, gaining promotion 100 points and so on. The beuaty of the system is that you could tailor it to what you believes gives you an edge over the AI and so making the game a real challenge. Maybe taking control of certain staff responsibilities should cost points, forcing you to delegate more. Maybe introducing a new tactic during the season will cost some points. Of course you have to do some bookkeeping, but it is not too demanding.

Make it possible to export data to csv-files. Many (most?) other sport management games have this feature. We are now forced to create custom views and then via ctrl+p save them to files and import them to excel etc. But the whole presentation of stats is poorly implemented in the game, some stats are available to print, some are not. And when you are creating your custom view there are no consistency... example: you may get the total number of Dribbles but not the total number of Sprints, that stat is only in the /90-format. OK, it is simple to multiply with Minutes to get the total number but it an odd design choice. Other stats is not available at all to download this way. Make this available and I am sure the community will use the data to create some very cool tools.