How do the guys like knap and other great tactic creators, create their tactics?

[SkillfulSpence]

I think its a key question, because they seem to understand the games match engine to the point of knowing exactly what makes it work for a system they want to build.

Id love to know their process in more detail. I know that they do various testing on their tactics for a season etc and see how it performs. But id like to know how they come up with something from the ground up. It seems like they have a new system or series of systems every few days or whatever.

If anyone out there runs a FM blog, it would be an amazing piece of content to have an interview with one of these guys.

[Rashidi]

I think there are loads of people here, who have tactics like that.  I have something like 80 tactics in my FM19 bank at the moment, and it's just common sense. Ask yourself what each role and duty does and understand how the team instructions work.

[crusadertsar]

Personally I'm not a fan of Knap's tactics as they seem too exploity to me. As in exploiting the match engine too much. I think the last tactic of his that I saw had like 7 attack duties on attacking mentality. And I'm guessing it still worked haha. How do people even come up with tactics like that? A lot of random testing? Because it doesn't really make sense in footballing sense

[Piperita]

First of all, standard disclaimer: I am by no means a tactic guru. I have a few that work, I have a few that look nice but little that is ready for publishing or is 'special'.

The way I play, different bases just happen naturally. Lots of different teams with different given key players and stars. Surprisingly good youth intakes or cheap deals. Offers I can't refuse. All these situations give me a different starting point for how I start the season. 

Unless I decide to cheese it or see obvious weak points, my first approach is: Take the squad and look at team status, hierarchy and star rating (okay, attributes but this could go too deep for first steps). Make a formation out of the top players and set them to their best position and roles. Add a few(!) team instructions and play friendlies. 

Adapt and continue. Some roles won't fit and have to be changed. Some stat spreads lead to players not playing well with the idea or their team mates. Some mixes create effective holes on the pitch. 

Usually I decide to take one or two harsh decisions after the roughly two weeks until the window opens: Trust a youth player over a veteran I'm cutting off. Bench a star player who is not a good fit or underperformed. Buy replacements. 

This is where heavy scouting begins and I get to finer details. Once the season starts I have one to two new formations that might be similar to what I have but have the team-specific quirks. Throughout the season the base stands but I continue to adapt until I have something that works as a baseline. 

The more I play or the more I reload the preseason, the more baselines I have that can be worked with. Sure, it might not be the most effective method but it won't completely me-ify a team immediately and keeps some character while expanding my view. 

After a few starts I now know enough to make quicker first decisions about similar players and some attributes I *really* need or that *really* play together. 

-------------

Another method, one I particularly use for midseason-files: Similarly, I start with a quick overview but also take into consideration unhappy players.

For them it is a quick decisions whether to cut them off or get them what they want. Sometimes an idea has to suffer to get morale up and th team to get together. Sometimes a player has to be punished to get something new going. 

Otherwise, with less time to experiment, I start with a similar formation OR starting squad and adapt in the direction the team failed before me.

I can change instructions, players, or formation but, unless one really underperformed or turned pissy, I start with the tactical approach. Once the tweaks are made, I check what the starting squad can do with it and do a few changes in players as well. [personally, I also always bench a starter for a young player but that is just preference].

This roleplaying approach always gets new things started that evolve. Add a few tweaks for big matches and sometimes stuff just works so well it gets tested more and more. 

Take my Pauli beta save: It started with a direct 4141 flat. Throughout the season I tweaked it into a 442 wingplay and 4411 fluid counter. The 442 slowly turned into my new standard with the 4141 (played slower) as a big game formation. When I needed a goal it got adapted into a 343 which became another mainstay. And in turn that 343 morphed into a 352 when one winger got injured midgame and right now that is what I am working with and morphing more and more.

In two seasons I had five different formations, each with different states and instructions over time. Arguably I had eight different, distinct tactics with them that, with extra testing or more universal tweaks, could be used for short videos or write-ups. 

Better players than me can skip a few steps. They see quicker which players fit which and what instructions work with them or generally fit together. Meaning they quicker can make adaptions and thus either make more experiments or get their ideas to work better, quicker. 

[Piperita]

40 minutes ago, crusadertsar said:

I think the last tactic of his that I saw had like 7 attack duties on attacking mentality. [...] How do people even come up with tactics like that? [...] Because it doesn't really make sense in footballing sense

I had a similar idea once but scrapped it due to a missing key player. Two IWBa, two MEZa, two Wa and one striker. My idea was not to exploit potential weak spots but to create a rather defensive formation from which the players bomb forwards after winning the ball. 

But even before I scrapped it, I created a few alternatives: One with the IWB on support and underlap, one with the IWB and W having mixed duties, one with DWs on the flanks to better reclaim balls, and finally one with SASA duties that on a second tactical slot was a ASAS that I switched between every ten to fifteen minutes. 

Sometimes legitimate tactical ideas and formations look weird on the screen because FM can't simulate every thing or weird idea and close-enough alternatives nominally have different roles or duties. 

Right now I am experimenting with heavy movement between the line after a joke experiment (two CD, 8 players on the wings) worked surprisingly well in tests as all the roles cutting inside had a lot of space to get into and used these holes pretty well. While this particular approach was a joke and borderline exploit (only borderline because it was better than expected, not better than all), I am now trying out IWBd in the wingback slots as pseudo DMs that protect hyper-aggressive wingbacks defensively but offensively link defense and midfield centrally and recycle between the lines. Otherwise this behaviour of DMs defending wide is hard to replicate but an IWBd comes close. Looks absolutely derpy on screen but - at least in my opinion - is the closest the ME comes to replicating legitimate ideas for movement. 

[crusadertsar]

@Piperita Those are interesting ideas. The first especially sounds almost like the way Man City play with wingbacks that go inside and drag opponent defenders with them while wingers get more 1on1s as they bomb forward. Intriguing. You inspired me to try something of my own. Thanks!

[VinceLombardi]

For me, I use my friendlies and youth matches to constantly experiment and tweak. 

I go into each of these non-competitive matches with a very specific goal in mind and see if I can make it happen.

Interestingly enough my last friendly I was playing around trying to do the same thing as @Piperita with IWB (d). I spent the entire match 100% focused on how those two guys played. Similarly, I'm really close to what I want, but not quite there.

When I get a role or a tactic that is playing the way I want, or very near it, then I save it to work with later. Another friendly/youth game I might take an existing tactic and just look for ways to improve it. Either improve that tactic or use it as a starting point to make something else.

Oftentimes I don't have anything to show from the match, but it's still good experience.

And so it continues. I'm constantly improving my tactics and getting a better understanding of the ME. All of which give me better tools for my competitive matches.

[SkillfulSpence]

1 hour ago, VinceLombardi said:

For me, I use my friendlies and youth matches to constantly experiment and tweak. 

I go into each of these non-competitive matches with a very specific goal in mind and see if I can make it happen.

Interestingly enough my last friendly I was playing around trying to do the same thing as @Piperita with IWB (d). I spent the entire match 100% focused on how those two guys played. Similarly, I'm really close to what I want, but not quite there.

When I get a role or a tactic that is playing the way I want, or very near it, then I save it to work with later. Another friendly/youth game I might take an existing tactic and just look for ways to improve it. Either improve that tactic or use it as a starting point to make something else.

Oftentimes I don't have anything to show from the match, but it's still good experience.

And so it continues. I'm constantly improving my tactics and getting a better understanding of the ME. All of which give me better tools for my competitive matches.

How much of the game now is based solely on tactic tweaking versus everything else?

To be more precise with what i mean, there are team talks, opposition instructions, player interactions, training, team influence etc.

But for me, and to answer my own question... i struggle struggle struggle, do what i can in the same way people have described... maybe get a promotion every now and then with a random team in a random league....
But literally as soon as i plug in a tactic from Knap or another well talked about tactic, i get instant results and 4-5 goals scored and runs of 10 games unbeaten. Regardless of what role is played by what player. It seems that every player fits the tactic perfectly fine, and i have players with 6 crossing playing at complete wing back putting in beautiful crosses suddenly... and im like wtf?!

So for me, it seems like the tactical system is about 90% of the game and everything else is just extras.

I feel there is an illusion of a simulation, but in reality there is something else entirely going on. After all, the match engine is an interpretation of Football rather than a perfect simulation of the game.

Bit deep for a Sunday evening hey.

[VinceLombardi]

5 minutes ago, SkillfulSpence said:

To be more precise with what i mean, there are team talks, opposition instructions, player interactions, training, team influence etc.

I do very little with 90% of this. I know a lot of folk just leave this to the assman without giving it another thought.

I focus on 1-2 things at a time and take a very methodical approach so that I can see what each change does and it's impact. I also tend to focus on what I identify as being the biggest issue at the time and very much take a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach.

For example, when my set pieces were holding me back, I started playing around with them, until I had some thing that worked well for me. Then I moved on to something else. They are far from 100%, and I have since identified a lot of tweaks that might help. But I'm not going back to them until I get some other more pressing issues done first. 

16 minutes ago, SkillfulSpence said:

But literally as soon as i plug in a tactic from Knap or another well talked about tactic, i get instant results and 4-5 goals scored and runs of 10 games unbeaten.

I don't know a lot about Knap's tactics, other than a lot of hearsay. But generally speaking, popular tactics are popular because they work and have been well tested. Further as more people use them, there is more feedback to allow for better adjustments. Additionally, I have found that writing a tactic/system down to explain it to the forum is incredible useful in getting a better understanding of the way it works. Often when I explain what I'm doing, I will realize that there are better ways to do what I'm doing and make an adjustment to improve it. These last 2 selfish reasons are a big part of why I publish the American Football system.

25 minutes ago, SkillfulSpence said:

So for me, it seems like the tactical system is about 90% of the game and everything else is just extras.

I feel there is an illusion of a simulation, but in reality there is something else entirely going on. After all, the match engine is an interpretation of Football rather than a perfect simulation of the game.

This is 100% the case for me as well, and something very important to keep in mind. It is a video game first and foremost, and sometimes you aren't going to be able to replicate the system you want or get a player to do exactly what you expect. At some point, you have to accept the limitations of the simulation and work within those confines. I think some people's frustrations with the game could be largely eliminated if they remembered this.

[phnompenhandy]

13 hours ago, crusadertsar said:

Personally I'm not a fan of Knap's tactics as they seem too exploity to me. As in exploiting the match engine too much. I think the last tactic of his that I saw had like 7 attack duties on attacking mentality. And I'm guessing it still worked haha. How do people even come up with tactics like that? A lot of random testing? Because it doesn't really make sense in footballing sense

That's my assumption too. I never go to that sub-forum and I take it that the posters and expert advisers here avoid exploits of the match engine in favour of trying to think like a real-life manager.

[SkillfulSpence]

4 hours ago, phnompenhandy said:

That's my assumption too. I never go to that sub-forum and I take it that the posters and expert advisers here avoid exploits of the match engine in favour of trying to think like a real-life manager.

Hence my initial question. Id love to know what they are doing when they build a tactic, what they are looking for. etc.

For me when im watching the matches play out. There seems to be very familiar highlights occuring.

For example, the highlights often are related to the GK kicking the ball out and my team winning possession almost everytime and then creating a bit of space immediately.

Also the same throw in seems to appear consistantly, the same corner routine of playing it short.

The highlights looks very similar from match to match... which makes me think the following

You need to have a tactic that works in your favour for "Common match scenarios/occurrences"
 

This is at least what seems to be whats happening in my view. But i guess we will have to ask @knap and others to weigh in and tell us how they are consistently making such amazing tactics!

[crusadertsar]

Yeah I think it would be pretty interesting to have Knap write on here the logic behind one of his amazing tactics. Like do a deep analytical breakdown in the style that Cleon or Rashidi do all the time. Would love to read that. The winning formula according to Knap

[russell9]

23 hours ago, SkillfulSpence said:

I think its a key question, because they seem to understand the games match engine to the point of knowing exactly what makes it work for a system they want to build.

Id love to know their process in more detail. I know that they do various testing on their tactics for a season etc and see how it performs. But id like to know how they come up with something from the ground up. It seems like they have a new system or series of systems every few days or whatever.

If anyone out there runs a FM blog, it would be an amazing piece of content to have an interview with one of these guys.

It's not rocket science. Just try as many tactical combinations as possible until you found the combinations that favor by the ME.
The numbers of tactics with so many combinations posted by him confirmed that. Anyone with enough time on hand could brute force to create such good tactics.
SI developers probably has their own super tactics generator where the program will automatically try thousands of combinations to find out the best combinations.


 

[SkillfulSpence]

6 hours ago, russell9 said:

It's not rocket science. Just try as many tactical combinations as possible until you found the combinations that favor by the ME.
The numbers of tactics with so many combinations posted by him confirmed that. Anyone with enough time on hand could brute force to create such good tactics.
SI developers probably has their own super tactics generator where the program will automatically try thousands of combinations to find out the best combinations.


 

Im not sure that is what is going on here though, as i mentioned there are specific regular common key highlights shown and every chance is like a carbon copy of a previous games scenario. Its interesting really and as others mention we really need him to weigh in. I have so many questions for him on this!!

[crusadertsar]

2 hours ago, SkillfulSpence said:

Im not sure that is what is going on here though, as i mentioned there are specific regular common key highlights shown and every chance is like a carbon copy of a previous games scenario. Its interesting really and as others mention we really need him to weigh in. I have so many questions for him on this!!

Yeah I don't think that's going to happen. He never writes analysis for his tactics. 

[warlock]

1 hour ago, crusadertsar said:

He never writes analysis for his tactics. 

Before I offer a thought on that, I feel I ought to state that I have nothing but admiration for knap - he puts an incredible amount of time and effort into his tactics, and he provides a brilliant resource for a lot of FM players. He also has outstanding taste in music .

But he has, in previous years, posted some info about his tactic testing and it seems to me that it is based on little more than brute-force, Darwinian process. He uses an automated, artificial testing environment in which there are no injuries, players never get tired, and there's never any need for rotation or substitutions. Failures are eliminated, tactics are tweaked and the process repeated, until an all-conquering system emerges. It seems clear to me that the result is exploitative of the ME - not by design, but the nature of the process will favour tactical adjustments that do exploit the ME.

As for the lack of analysis, I don't think it interests him (or, at least, he's never given any indication that it interests him). He seems to view it as an intellectual problem and he has developed a set of tools to solve it. If you look through a few of his threads in the download forum there's no insight into the thought process, any potential pitfalls or problems, or any acknowledgement that things might not work. When people point out that any given tactic isn't working he merely points them to a different tactic.

And to repeat, I have no problem with any of that. He does what he enjoys, and a huge number of players enjoy it too. They don't care about the fine points of football tactics or they're frustrated by the subtleties of the ME. They just want to load up something that will deliver results. Long may he - and they - prosper!

[VinceLombardi]

3 minutes ago, warlock said:

Long may he - and they - prosper!

I appreciate somebody with knowledge on the subject speaking up for him. I think there is an important place for what he does and it certainly doesn't hinder how the rest of us play. And I think its extremely unfair to try to hold him to a standard he hasn't set for himself. We encourage people to play the way they want to play and challenge people to think about their tactics, and yet deride and dismiss him because his tactics exploit the ME. "Most consistently dominate tactic" is as much as a valid design goal as "hoofball" or "possession". 

[BMNJohn]

24 minutes ago, VinceLombardi said:

I appreciate somebody with knowledge on the subject speaking up for him. I think there is an important place for what he does and it certainly doesn't hinder how the rest of us play. And I think its extremely unfair to try to hold him to a standard he hasn't set for himself. We encourage people to play the way they want to play and challenge people to think about their tactics, and yet deride and dismiss him because his tactics exploit the ME. "Most consistently dominate tactic" is as much as a valid design goal as "hoofball" or "possession". 

Considering the ME isn't really able to reflect "real" football, treating it as a puzzle to solve can indeed have its place, so fair enough.

[scwiffy]

1 hour ago, BMNJohn said:

Considering the ME isn't really able to reflect "real" football, treating it as a puzzle to solve can indeed have its place, so fair enough.

100% this. People seem to forget this is a GAME. 

[phnompenhandy]

7 hours ago, BMNJohn said:

Considering the ME isn't really able to reflect "real" football, treating it as a puzzle to solve can indeed have its place, so fair enough.

Sure, no argument there. I was just making the point that posters in this specific forum like to treat the game as similar to real life rather than as a code to break.

[TheDecentOne]

So is the general consensus that the majority of things we do in the game has no bearing on results? Player instructions, team talks, press conferences etc.

I don't mean this in a negative way at all I'm just keen to further my knowledge on the game.

[Mica]

I believe that everything have some effect, even if it is a minor effect. It could be enough to finish the league with 82 points instead of 80, and be champion instead of 2nd. I just don't believe that mental games, press conferences, team talks, etc have even 1/4 effect that tactics have, just like in real life.

[herne79]

13 minutes ago, Mica said:

I believe that everything have some effect, even if it is a minor effect. It could be enough to finish the league with 82 points instead of 80, and be champion instead of 2nd. I just don't believe that mental games, press conferences, team talks, etc have even 1/4 effect that tactics have, just like in real life.

This.  Having a sound tactical system (with suitable players to use it) which can be easily adapted if needed is by far the biggest influence on results.  Have a good system but poor morale and whatnot and you can still get good results.  Have a poor system but great morale etc and you'll be sacked by the end of August.

But have a good system along with good morale etc and as Mica rightly says it can make the difference.

1 hour ago, TheDecentOne said:

So is the general consensus that the majority of things we do in the game has no bearing on results? Player instructions, team talks, press conferences etc.

I don't mean this in a negative way at all I'm just keen to further my knowledge on the game.

These things absolutely do have a bearing on results (see above).  What's being discussed further up is two different ways of playing the game: using tactics to simply beat the game (which some call exploit tactics); or using tactics to play in a certain style of football perhaps more true to real life.  Both are perfectly valid ways of playing the game but still need well put together tactics in order to achieve some success.

[Mica]

I also believe that "exploit" tactics are super important to help developing more "true to real life" tactics, because they point out major issues and things that are absolutely impossible to recreate in real life. I see them as a great QA resource, actually.

[TheDecentOne]

@Mica Thanks for the explanation, I have always believed they must have some form of impact, I suppose it's harder to see evidence of this!

@herne79 Can fully well believe it after just being sacked by Sunderland before Christmas! Great morale in the dressing room, awful results on the pitch.

 

Thanks for your replies.