[FM14 Challenge] - Dad's Army

[Braumiller]

With FM14 now available to play it is time for a new challenge to be unleashed unto the forum!

The Dad’s Army Challenge in a Nutshell

To take one of the 22 Blue Square North or 22 Blue Square South teams at the beginning of the game (June 2013) up through the English leagues; win the Premier League and the Champions League trophy.

The Twist?

You can only ever field players that are 32 years old or older.

Game Set-Up

• Choose England as the only playable nation

• Select playable leagues as BSN/BSS & make sure none of the Advanced Options are checked (see screenshot)

• Database size – small, medium or large (large recommended)

• Recommended that you then customize by adding current international players for each of the 6 continents (see screenshot), but no other customization's to be added

Manager Set-Up

• Previous experience must be set to Sunday League

• Choose your preferred club for setting out on your managerial journey

Rules for the Challenge

• No player 31 years old or younger can ever play a competitive game for you (friendlies are fine, as they do not create records on your history screen – and in the first season it is impossible to bring in enough new older players in time to have a decent preseason otherwise)

• If any players under the age of 32 appear for your team in any non-friendly then your save is void and the challenge is failed.

• Player Transfers - to sign a player permanently or on loan you must be able to do one of three things;

............Be able to scout him.

............Be able to offer him a trial.

............Have had him offered to you by an agent

• Note - You can buy players under the age of 32, but they cannot play for you (you can loan them back out or have them play in your reserves until old enough etc..).

• Coaching Staff Transfers – while you are still in the Conference North or Conference South you may hire in anyone you are able to, in order to assemble a workable backroom staff. Once you have achieved your first promotion then the only way to hire new backroom staff is to sign players to dual roles (player / coach for example) or to encourage your aging playing staff into the non-playing roles and then hiring them (assistant manager, coaches, scouts, physio etc..).

• During your seasonal write-up, you must include a screenshot of your seasons records which will list the youngest player who appeared in a competitive game for you (therefore proving you adhered to the main rule of the challenge)

• No external applications / utilities should be used in any circumstances. The game should be started with the original data released by SI (or any subsequent official SI data updates).

• No international management is permitted until the challenge has been completed.

• If you are fired from your job the challenge is failed and must be restarted.

Unique Features to the Dad’s Army Challenge

• Generally speaking older players will be slower, but more technical proficient than younger ones. Will this affect your tactical outlook to the challenge?

• There is an extremely important initial period during your first 4-6 weeks where you will have to bring in a lot of new faces. Make sure you have a large enough squad to deal with any injuries and suspensions. If you are forced to play a player under 32 years old in a competitive fixture you will have broken the main rule of the challenge and that attempt will be void.

• A lot of money can usually be made by buying bright young things, giving them first team experience and development and then selling them for a large profit. This option is not possible in this challenge.

• Player turnover will be above average during the course of the challenge due to the shortened shelf life of your playing staff.

• Will you completely scrap your clubs youth set up to save money, or still foster a healthy youth team in the hopes of loaning them out and selling them later?

• Hey, the Conference North and Conference South teams get some love and can partake in a challenge!

Rules for this Thread

• Player naming is allowed

• Tactic discussion is allowed. Reading how managers adapt tactically to a full team of aging players should prove interesting.

• Detailed seasonal write up posts are highly encouraged. Half the fun of these forum challenges is reading how other managers are progressing and handling issues and situations similar to yours. Screenshots and youtube videos are great!

• In your initial introduction post, please post a screenshot of your managers screen where your starting reputation is displayed

• Please post most or all of your images as links. This helps keep the thread quicker to load.

Teams Available for this Challenge

CONFERENCE NORTH

                          Media     Existing Players
       Team Name        Prediction     32 & Over
AFC Telford                  5th            2
Altrincham                   1st            2
Barrow                       6th            2
Boston United               10th            1
Brackley Town                7th            2
Bradford Park Avenue        14th            2
Colwyn Bay                  18th            2
Gainsborough Trinity        15th            3
Gloucester City             19th            3
Guiseley                     2nd            2
Harrogate Town               4th            5
Hednesford Town             12th            1
Histon                      20th            0
Leamington                  22nd            1
North Ferriby United         8th            0
Oxford City                 17th            4
Solihull Moors              13th            2
Stalybridge Celtic           9th            0
Stockport                    3rd            1
Vauxhall Motors             21st            1
Worcester City              11th            2
Workington                  16th            2

CONFERENCE SOUTH

                          Media     Existing Players
       Team Name        Prediction     32 & Over
Basingstoke Town            12th            0
Bath City                    8th            4
Bishop's Stortford          15th            1
Boreham Wood                 5th            3
Bromley                     10th            0
Chelmsford City              4th            1
Concord Rangers             20th            0
Dorchester Town             22nd            2
Dover Athletic               3rd            1
Eastbourne Borough          14th            1
Eastleigh                    2nd            3
Ebbsfleet                    1st            0
Farnborough Town            11th            1
Gosport Borough             21st            4
Havant & Waterlooville       7th            2
Hayes & Yeading             13th            0
Maidenhead United           18th            1
Staines Town                19th            1
Sutton United                6th            7
Tonbridge Angels            16th            1
Weston-Super-Mare           17th            1
Whitehawk                    9th            2

Good luck to all that attempt and participate in this challenge!

A more detailed pair of lists regarding the starting clubs can be found in mikenevo's post #28 - LINK HERE

[Braumiller]

[]

[Lower Leagues Rule]

Come on Sutton Utd, really like the challenge Braumiller, you may see me visit later in the season.

Already 7 old men at Sutton (How many are Keepers? )

Good Luck to all those who join

[ashton321]

Superb idea this mate.

I did something similar couple of years ago. I played additional leagues in Switzerland with Old Boys. I felt it fitted well. Tough challenge though I found injuries a nightmare

[Braumiller]

Appreciate the initial feedback Looking forward to this and will be starting my game tonight once done with work

[ashton321]

Quick question is there any reason why you decided not to do this with other leagues than just in England

[Braumiller]

Quick question is there any reason why you decided not to do this with other leagues than just in England

First time running the challenge, so I wanted to keep it tight. If things go well and people enjoy the challenge once the game is fully released then maybe the FM15 iteration will be on a more European or Global scale.

[Shakes]

Like the idea. IMO this is a much harder challenge than the youth challenges, one major injury to a player and he's cooked at age 32+, and even natural decline means getting more than a couple of seasons out of anybody is tough. An age limit of 32 might be a bit too tough and ask but I'm sure someone will prove me wrong.

A tip I learnt from my save in FM13 - with older players if you give them the "One Year Extension After X League Games" clause they'll often give you a huge discount on their asking wage. Very useful clause to have anyway so you can lock them in to another year if they're still performing or let them go if they fall victim to age. Tactics wise I'd think a deep line is a must and a narrow formation might be best, since once wingers lose their legs they're not much good to you. Although not sure how old guys will go playing as wingbacks either ... might have a few cardiac arrests on the field.

[Braumiller]

Welcome on-board mikenevo

I too have begun my journey, picking Whitehawk as my team for the challenge

Starting Profile

I actually started this morning and got carried away with a lot of scouting of old men and completely rebuilding the squad from the ground up.

It was slow going to begin with and I only had 3 or 4 players in after the first two weeks, but then things really picked up and on the morning of my first league game (not played it yet) our squad looks like this - SQUAD

I started out with a little bit of wiggle room on our wage bill, spending 2.8k p/w and the budget being 4.8k p/w, but we soon burned through that. Moving on the non grandpa's proved tricky.

I was only able to sell 1 (for zero, but removed his 400 p/w wages) and loan out 1 (for 100% wages), so in the end I simply terminated all of the remaining contracts (at a huge cost, but it free'd up a LOT of wage budget and if we are going to do this thing, we are going to do it properly!! )

Funny pregame press conference before our first league game, it seems the game and opposing managers are fully aware of what we are doing at Whitehawk! Press Question & Answer

[Braumiller]

Have you set up your tactic yet?

I have, and I have continued my obsession with strikerless formations into FM14 and have a new 460 set-up.

Apart from the obsession there were two reasons;

1) I want my older guys to pass it around more, let the ball do the work

2) With my set up (DR.DC.DC.DL.DM.DM.DM.AMC.AMC.AMC) I feel I can get away with a thinner squad due to players being able to cover multiple roles.

Happy with the squad in the end, although I wouldn't be telling the truth if I said I wasn't worried halfway through preseason. The last 2 weeks were huge as I had a LOT of scout reports to use in my decision making.

How about yourself?

[Braumiller]

One thing I need to clarify, I'm trying to sign a player but he wants to be a Player/U21's manager, is this ok?

Absolutely. Just don't play him if he is under 32

Worth highlighting one of the rules

• Coaching Staff Transfers – while you are still in the Conference North or Conference South you may hire in anyone you are able to, in order to assemble a workable backroom staff. Once you have achieved your first promotion then the only way to hire new backroom staff is to hire your aging playing staff into the non-playing roles (assistant manager, coaches, scouts, physio etc..)

Eventually you are going to want to either bring in players who already have backroom abilities or encourage them to become backroom staff while at your club

[Braumiller]

Could you clarify though, if I was in League 2 and I had this same situation, a player who wants a dual role. Would this be prohibited or encouraged? (To Sign Him)

That would be fine, as he would also be a member of the playing staff. You just cannot bring in 'pure' staff.

I will clarify the rule in the original post

[Braumiller]

Ok, embarrassing admission time.

7 games into my season with Whitehawk (sitting 9th) and I get to wear my away kit for the first time, and it is a deal breaker. Text commentary comes up as white text on a very light sky blue background and you can barely see the text, let alone read it

Trust me, I know how this probably reads, but I also know myself and it would bug the living hell out of me and prevent this from being a long term challenge save.

Sooooooo, restart time.......

Unknown Sunday League footballer Ben Talbott has been named as a shock choice of manager for the club he once was a very small minority owner in during it's MyFootballClub ownership days (true story, 35 pound a year, I probably paid for a whole corner flag!), Ebbsfleet United

Media and board expectations are sky high, so this is going to require hitting the ground running.....

No current players 32 or older, so let the turnover begin!

[Shakes]

LOL completely understandable, I edited the Real colours before starting my save last year because their default was navy blue on black, and I wasn't going to attempt to read that all year.

[ri916]

LOL completely understandable, I edited the Real colours before starting my save last year because their default was navy blue on black, and I wasn't going to attempt to read that all year.

Shakes . My challenge doesn't allow this type of editing, unfortunately this makes your completion nul and void.

Just kidding.

[FMtillidie]

Brilliant idea, will need to have a go at this!

[korvalis]

Looks like a fun challenge, and continuing my ironic choice of my successful youth team being my favourite choice, I've take over as the manager of Histon.

With the 'oldest' member of the team being a sprightly 22 years of age, this does mean a complete changing of the team, no man is safe from the chopping board.

[Braumiller]

Welcome on board korvalis!

Ebbsfleet are proving a little easier to recruit for due to the larger wage budget, but I still had issues selling players. I sold one and then terminated the rest (let's not mention how much that cost......), but I want them gone so that the whole squad is eligible for the challenge and one mistake does not void it.

Just started the season and it is going well, but those first two weeks are rough. 4 games in 10-12 days, with a squad of players who are recruited so late in the pre-season that most had either 1 or 2 games to get ready, or none at all. A lot of VERY tired legs currently.

They seem to be settling into the new 4-6-0 formation, and now time to try and push on a challenge for the promotion that the board insists we can achieve.....

(otherwise this might not be a long game....)

mikenevo, thanks for the lists in post #28, I'll tag a link to it in the opening post

[nie jem frytek]

That's really interesting challenge. Shame I probably won't be buying FM 14 anytime soon.

[Tush]

Hello, this is a brilliant idea for a challenge, and after I had my experience with other challenges, ri's for example (last year i had a ton of fun with it), I will definitely look to try this one out

[korvalis]

Going to start the mass exodus properly tonight, and will probably also end up with a strikerless formation, though I'll probably settle for my preferred 5-5-0 variant.

[Jambo98]

Really like the concept of this challenge, have done similar myself last year on a smaller scale where I set myself a challenge to only ever sign players over 30. This one is far tougher! Also quite like that it doesn't require the "holiday and pick a new promoted team" - nice to get some of the existing BSS/BSN (yeah, not digging the renaming of the leagues!) involved.

Might give it a go, with the game being Beta not sure il continue it long term, but could be a fun few seasons.

[Jambo98]

Oh yeah, couple of questions/observations:

• Attribute masking not mentioned in the rules/OP?
  
• Database size - You suggest loading international players from every continent (which I have gone with) but should you maybe put restriction on this being the only addition? Or could people add "top division players" from any continent? Would make the game quite different in terms of player choice further down the line?
  
• Not giving away spoilers, but surely there is an error in the data for Eastleigh? Or an over optimistic researcher?
  

[korvalis]

Not really, struggling with the budget a little with Histon, had to re-load a few times, may have to be much less optimistic with the calibre of players I can bring in and will probably end up with a minimalist squad of 17 or so player to start off with.

[Braumiller]

Oh yeah, couple of questions/observations:

• Attribute masking not mentioned in the rules/OP?
  
• Database size - You suggest loading international players from every continent (which I have gone with) but should you maybe put restriction on this being the only addition? Or could people add "top division players" from any continent? Would make the game quite different in terms of player choice further down the line?
  
• Not giving away spoilers, but surely there is an error in the data for Eastleigh? Or an over optimistic researcher?
  

Clarified points made in the original post

[Braumiller]

Congrats mikenevo!

Moving on up!

[Dan BHTFC]

Going to try this with a team near me, even though I don't really like them!

[nine_iron]

I really like the idea of this, might take the principles

to a Grimsby save on my Lincs & Humber database.

[ri916]

Ok that's me done with this challenge, we are 24th place and 16 points behind getting out of relegation, the sack is looming and we are £1.2mil in debt. Even with the 20k wage budget I was unable to bring in any significant signings of Skrill Premier quality.

I've played as big clubs, I've played as small clubs previously unplayable and won the Champions League and Premier League, I've done the youth challenge and reached the Premier League, I've never been sacked ever.

The point is, this challenge to me seems impossible. I only got promotion the first season because I had a mega wage budget.

Tbf though if you always quit the save before you're sacked it isn't all that surprising is it?

[Shakes]

I'd be surprised if you were actually sacked, normally getting a promotion means you survive the sack if you're relegated the next season, the boost from increasing club rep saves you.

[UkFootballScore]

may well try this challenge on my fm08 but obviously change it up slightly to make it viable on that game like you can't suggest to become backroom staff or anything! may make that rule any retired players after the first season

[TheGreatTraveler]

I might attempt this once I get the game, which should be in the next week or so.