Farmerg07 Posted November 17, 2017 Share Posted November 17, 2017 This topic has probably been discussed before but... I’ve been ‘playing’ FM for 11 years now but in the last couple of editions I’ve found it hard to commit to a save. I usually choose saves where I’ve seen a team IRL that might make an interesting save, madly obsess over the teams history, tradition etc and then lose interest somewhere between day one (yes) and the first couple of competitive matches and repeat the same exercise a week later. Either that or I attempt to rekindle the enjoyment of a previous save/team. The same results apply. The longest save I have done since the release of FM15 was four and a half seasons. I long for the days when I could have a long term save, not just live out others careers on here or on YouTube. Am I forever doomed or can someone save me from this maddening managerial limbo? I welcome all suggestions. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pyeman31 Posted November 17, 2017 Share Posted November 17, 2017 Read your post and it made me chuckle. I have been having the same issues for the last 2/3 FM editions. I spend a good evening sorting out out coaches/scouting/player transfers etc, play a couple of games then get bored or having just watched a team on TV feel the urge do the same with them. I used to always fall back on managing MUFC but havent even done that for about 3 years. So far in FM18 I have been Saints, athletico madrid, Arsenal & Tottenham. All of them lasted at the most till october 1ST season. Last night I again started with saints as I normally enjoy a good save with them, hope it lasts. I cant put my finger on what the problem is. Maybe its my laptop not giving a quality 3D game or it might be because I read through this foum and see alot of people moan about the M.E etc and then find myself looking for problem when playing a game. You know the problems I mean, too many goals from crosses, cross bar hit too many times, crosses to near post tipped behind by GK, the list goes on. Maybe I should ignore peoples gripes with the game and go and enjoy it for what it is, a great way to waste an evening. It could just be that I am now getting too old to be committing hours of my time to a game. My suggestion is to maybe try something that you may not have ever done on this game (My next step) which could be to let the computer pick a random team for you or start unemployed and build your reputation up from the gutter of club football. Good Luck!!! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMV90 Posted November 18, 2017 Share Posted November 18, 2017 After having a frustrating save (one I started on the beta) and getting fired, I decided that save was my test one and my save now is my proper one. Managing Shrews (as I always do) and currently around mid-table. The one thing that helps me commit to massive a save with Shrewsbury every year (as in I’ve reached 2096 before and regularly have a good 70+ season save ) is regens, especially youth players from my own club. Nothing beats the feeling when you have a world-class team of youth players and they go on to break records and have glittering careers. I’ve had a lot of players over the years but one that stands out for me was Philip Jemson. He came through my youth intake as a 16-year-old RB and held that position as his own until about 38. He won an absolute plethora of trophies with us and was one player I’ll never forget. EDIT: Sometimes, it doesn't even need to be a youth intake player. Sometimes, you just have to part with less than £5,000,000 for happiness. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
phnompenhandy Posted November 18, 2017 Share Posted November 18, 2017 I found the magic key a few years ago. Maybe it just works for me but I'll briefly let you in. I create my own personalized FM universe. It starts with the editor. This year I've put an 8-tier file through the editor and adapted it to create my own league. The Premier League has the top 6 English clubs and my picks from around Europe such as Barce and Bayern. In the Championship I've added Celtic and as I go down the divisions my selected pick from the rest of Europe, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Cambodia (where I live) appear. By the time I'm in the 8th tier I've even made up some amateur clubs from places special to me, and created my own bespoke club (see under my avatar). I find it helps starting so low down the pyramid because any ME glitches can be interpreted as amateur hoof-ball standard errors - and the play really can be quite comical at this level. In this club I've made my wife the chairman and populated the squad with 24 15 and 16-year old lads (who are in the database) with CA20 and a club rep of 50 to make it the weakest club in the pyramid. The whole set-up is designed to be a challenge - hard, but not too hard. I rig contracts to make the staff and kids stay as my policy is never to bring in anyone from outside but only promote academy intake kids. An additional benefit of this in FM18 is that the new scouting system that befuddles me is entirely side-stepped as all my part-time scout ever does is scout next opposition. I'm stuck with the squad and staff I start with so I'm going to get to know them well - they're my family, basically. I make my own staff/player pics for them (most of my staff are female so the picture are quite attractive!). I'm never going to leave and I'm unsackable so it's all about me spending a year nurturing my baby. To be frank, I would have left FM a couple of years ago if it wasn't for this strategy. For me, it really does make all the difference. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cableguy Posted November 18, 2017 Share Posted November 18, 2017 For the last few years I have always set myself the same 3 game challenges. 1) Liverpool - Regular game but stay with them as long as I can. In fm2017 i'm still going after 30 years of management. 2) Liverpool with a twist - I can only use English players. I sell all my main foreign stars and replace them with English "talent" 3) What I call the "Jose" where I bounce from league to league every couple of years. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farmerg07 Posted November 20, 2017 Author Share Posted November 20, 2017 Thanks for all the replies. I've started an unemployed save in Latin countries (South America plus Spain & Portugal) and got the job at Las Palmas Athletic (their B team) just before the January window. Never done a B team before so that's instantly more interesting. I've also turned on attribute masking and I'm not going find players or staff using the search function; both of which I don't normally do. I'm about to advance from day 1 (a big step) so with me luck Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saint_Lane Posted November 20, 2017 Share Posted November 20, 2017 A big issue is when people say they are struggling to find a captivating or long term save - What they really mean is struggling to have a successful one. Often winning games / trophies is what holds our attention and makes the save enjoyable. The trick is to work through a bad season or 2, or get fired and find another club. Often early success drives us forward in a save - If you can accept it may be rough at the start and be prepared to fight through it you may find some enjoyment. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
kmcmillan19 Posted November 20, 2017 Share Posted November 20, 2017 I'm having a bit of this issue at the moment. I'll usually play a save with Everton. I'll enjoy it and have plenty of success but then I come on here and read about someone doing a lower league save. So then I start a lower league save and go for a bit until I read about someone trying resurrect a fallen club. So then I start a new save with Portsmouth or the like. After playing that for a week or so, I decide I want to do a journeyman save with the top European leagues where I start unemployed. I get hired by whatever random club and try to get them out of the relegation zone and up the charts. Then, I watch an Everton match and decide I should really go back to managing them. Only I can't go back to my original save because it's been a few weeks and I don't remember exactly what was going on. So I start a new Everton save and there the cycle begins again. I'm about to start a new Everton save tonight I think. Now I just have to quit with the forums... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pikeal Posted November 20, 2017 Share Posted November 20, 2017 Same here!! To get me motivated for a longer-term save I will typically think of a player I like in real life and then think about what team I would like them to play for, usually from a historical perspective. For example, I have recently started a game with Newcastle and I wanted a good yet slightly unproven English striker so I signed Callum Wilson from Bournemouth. This allows me to relive my CM96/97 days somewhat with that Shearer/Ferdinand partnership. I'm also going for Harry Arter so maybe I should've just been Bournemouth. Oh well...the cycle continues... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArielOrtega10 Posted November 20, 2017 Share Posted November 20, 2017 For me I always choose a team from a place I have been on holiday. Managing Wacker Innsbruck from Austria, drove through the beautiful city of Innsbruck in the summer and for some reason I can now relate to their local football team even though I know nothing about them. If that fails, then I set myself a challenge. 2 Football managers ago I decided to try and win everything with Cagliari using only players born in Cagliari. Certainly made youth intake day more exciting!! Completely failed obviously but it was fun whilst it lasted. For me it's about creating your own little unique story, setting yourself weird objectives to stick to, creating a manager that has no resemblance to yourself whatsoever. Everyone has there own reasons but these work for me. kmcmillan19 is spot on though! it's swings and roundabouts with saves sometimes, too many options Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark1985 Posted November 21, 2017 Share Posted November 21, 2017 9 hours ago, joepippmg said: For me I always choose a team from a place I have been on holiday. Managing Wacker Innsbruck from Austria, drove through the beautiful city of Innsbruck in the summer and for some reason I can now relate to their local football team even though I know nothing about them. If that fails, then I set myself a challenge. 2 Football managers ago I decided to try and win everything with Cagliari using only players born in Cagliari. Certainly made youth intake day more exciting!! Completely failed obviously but it was fun whilst it lasted. For me it's about creating your own little unique story, setting yourself weird objectives to stick to, creating a manager that has no resemblance to yourself whatsoever. Everyone has there own reasons but these work for me. kmcmillan19 is spot on though! it's swings and roundabouts with saves sometimes, too many options Spot on with this, as this is exactly what I do. I do love Innsbruck (I've been there dozens of times and my family is from just south of there) but I used to live in Linz for a few years so LASK all the way for me! I enjoy managing FC Luzern in Switzerland (used to follow them when living there as they were the closest pro team) or FC Kussnacht in the lower leagues as they were the amateur team in the next door village (mine was too small to have their own). The 3 things that do it for me is finding a connection with the team (real life fan, been there on holiday, whatever really), homegrown/youth saves do it for me (taking the local bunch of farmers/fishermen/miners to glory and showing the world!) and there's the unkown factor (some saves just click for whatever reason). In terms of the creating a manager with no resemblance to yourself, I might give mine a random second nationality (Tajik maybe. Or a small Caribbean island. Maybe Faroese...) to see if any random regens come into my academy Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArielOrtega10 Posted November 21, 2017 Share Posted November 21, 2017 9 hours ago, mark1985 said: Spot on with this, as this is exactly what I do. I do love Innsbruck (I've been there dozens of times and my family is from just south of there) but I used to live in Linz for a few years so LASK all the way for me! I enjoy managing FC Luzern in Switzerland (used to follow them when living there as they were the closest pro team) or FC Kussnacht in the lower leagues as they were the amateur team in the next door village (mine was too small to have their own). The 3 things that do it for me is finding a connection with the team (real life fan, been there on holiday, whatever really), homegrown/youth saves do it for me (taking the local bunch of farmers/fishermen/miners to glory and showing the world!) and there's the unkown factor (some saves just click for whatever reason). In terms of the creating a manager with no resemblance to yourself, I might give mine a random second nationality (Tajik maybe. Or a small Caribbean island. Maybe Faroese...) to see if any random regens come into my academy I'm glad you agree, I've also spent a lot of time in Linz and tried a career with BSW Linz on this year's FM. Unfortunately they have a terrible logo, it's so uninspiring and boring that it genuinely ruined my save. I like your idea of the second nationality for youth intake, I hadn't considered that before! I also spend a lot of time making sure all my players have faces (through a fair bit of editing the config files), I have the right kit packs, the league names etc etc. Only then can I feel truly comfortable to knuckle down and commit. Maybe I'm just weird but it bugs me way too much when I have a player with no face. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark1985 Posted November 22, 2017 Share Posted November 22, 2017 14 hours ago, joepippmg said: I'm glad you agree, I've also spent a lot of time in Linz and tried a career with BSW Linz on this year's FM. Unfortunately they have a terrible logo, it's so uninspiring and boring that it genuinely ruined my save. I like your idea of the second nationality for youth intake, I hadn't considered that before! I also spend a lot of time making sure all my players have faces (through a fair bit of editing the config files), I have the right kit packs, the league names etc etc. Only then can I feel truly comfortable to knuckle down and commit. Maybe I'm just weird but it bugs me way too much when I have a player with no face. I've watched Blau Weiss a few times as well. I used to live on the same road as the footy stadium there so was dead close, but as most of my work colleagues were LASK fans I started to watch for their results. There are a few long term things I want to test, mainly: does having a second nationality effect the regens coming through? if you put the youth intake of a random tiny country to 200, what happens? if you gave a non league club a sugar daddy, what happens? A long term save would be a great place to test these Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dalglish Posted November 22, 2017 Share Posted November 22, 2017 I always find the lower the league I start in, the longer my save will be. Generally if start in a higher league, I'll lose interest early on because i feel that i haven't earned my right to be there. Another thing I've done in the past, when I've lost my FM mojo - is to read a book for some inspiration: The Miracle of Castel Di Sanrgo (Joe McGinniss) - inspired many a Serie C save for me. Only a Game? (Dunphy) - inspired me to have a stab a Millwall in FM14 (I think it was) El Diego (can't remember the author), did a great save a few years back with Boca Juniors in an attempt to dominate the World Club Cub Damned United (David Peace) is a great read if you want to have a go at reviving Dirty Leeds Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
t-zolla Posted November 22, 2017 Share Posted November 22, 2017 Probably similar to a few above, I find a 'story' about a club, then research them and then get to know the real club through press stories, social accounts or just wiki! Then i have more of an interest in that club and go and manage them!! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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