Lower League Management in CM4
Bugs
Finally bit the bullet and bought CM4 last week. Found loads of bugs that I
expect are already noted elsewhere so I won't bother with them.
My experience of managing in the lower leagues of England have been
interesting though.
I started as manager of Scarborough in the conference. The board and fans
expected a mid table finish only. After having a look around I had some half
decent players but no money to spend at all and a salary budget of £10k
(which I was already £1700 over from the start!!). The only player brought
in was a striker called something Arbuckle from Celtic Under19's. I already
had a AM from Bolton under19's that was pretty good on loan. With these
players (and the board whinging all season about me being over the salary
budget) I managed to fight for the conference title right up to the last few
weeks of the season when we faded a little. We still managed to make the
playoffs though. In the playoffs we won fairly easily to get promotion at
the first attempt.
Now for the killer part. All of my squad except 3 or 4 players (mostly crap
ones) had contracts running out at the end of the first season. When I tried
to renew the contracts they all wanted contracts on around £1500 - £2000 per
week. At that rate I could only get 5 or 6 players in total on my budget.
Having just achieved promotion I hoped for a slightly higher budget for next
season and so let the contracts run out and waited for the new budget. The
new budget finally arrives and........ comes in £500 less at £9500 (despite
having been promoted). So I now have 3 - 4 players in total at the club and
a miserly salary budget. It took about 3 months to finally get enough
players to just put a side out without any of the grey players, and by this
point I'm £2700 over my salary budget. It seems impossible to find any
players that are willing to sign for less than £500 per week, most want
£1000+ ( though some of these do come down to around £800 - 900 occasionally
during negotiations ). So on the budget I have it's impossible to get a
squad together. You need at least 18 or 19 players in CM4 to cover all the
injuries you receive ( I currently have two of my best defenders out with
long term injuries, one for 22 months and the other for 11 months. I also
have a star striker out for six months).
Ah well, the struggle goes on, we currently have about 10 games left in the
season and we have fought our way to about 8 points clear of the relegation
zone (despite picking up one point from the first 15 games). So hopefully I
can survive this season ( if the board keeps letting me get away with being
£2700 over the salary budget.
Can anyone who makes it this far go round and wake the others up please :)
Bugs
Kyoshi
news:b8iuav$s64$1$8300...@news.demon.co.uk...
My philosophy is to screw the budget: make losses if needed: it's only a
game (if you go bankrupt, just try again, but use a different strategy). I
play Barnet, who don't have a lot of money to start out with either.
Constant losses are what I'm up against. But the solution is quite simple
and obvious, if you manage to pull it off, namely to promote to higher
divisions as soon as possible. I have been able to win the conference in the
first season, and won the third division in the second season (without
cheating). Now I'm playing in the second division, and my budget is a lot
bigger. More money is coming in, and crappy players who complain about their
salaries can go away. I loan some good players, and sign good players for
free (I managed to loan Pienaar from Ajax, and sign Patrick Lodewijks,
Cissé, Babangida and others on a free transfer). I now have a relatively
good group of players, with respectable salaries (players like Lodewijks
have their demands...), but I can now make a profit.
Win as much cup matches as you can as well, because then you earn a lot of m
oney too (FA Cup etc.). Don't hesitate to replay a cup match if you lost but
think you are able to win with another tactic (sometimes it's just nearly
impossible: I played a 5th round FA Cup match with Barnet against Man Utd...
Well, I just accepted my loss and got on with the game). But as it is only
a computer you are playing against, who cares if you replay some games? You
could only be cheating yourself, but do you care? And the other way of
seeing it is as a scientific experiment: what effect do different tactics
have when you replay the same match several times with different tactics?
So, if the computer screws you and you feel mistreated by it, just reload
and try again. By the way: I only do that with cup matches, not with league
matches (but the computer doesn't care less if I would replay all games,
it's just personal preference to see the outcome when I play it this way).
Kyoshi
Josh
"Bugs" <martin...@nospam.program-products.co.uk> wrote in message
news:b8iuav$s64$1$8300...@news.demon.co.uk...
> Fairly long......
>
> Finally bit the bullet and bought CM4 last week. Found loads of bugs that
I
> expect are already noted elsewhere so I won't bother with them.
>
> My experience of managing in the lower leagues of England have been
> interesting though.
>
I know what you mean, I am at Leicester and a pretty similar thing happened.
In my first season, we got a mid table finish, pretty dissapointing as I was
meant to challenge for at least a play off place, but never mind
Second season was much better, managed to get into the play offs on the last
day of the season, only to lose in the first round. Just before the end of
the season though, due to the high wage bill (about 50k over, already like
that when I joined) the club was placed in administration. Now in my third
season I was breifed to challenge for the title and made 2-1 favourites, but
I'm at the bottom end because all the players are low on morale due to the
finances, and I've had to sell 3 or 4 of my stars because of the wages. I
dont understand it though, because I had the best part of £3m transfer funds
(mainly raised from selling one player for £5m in the previous season) still
left, and then I was given 700k TV rights, £1.3million for the league place,
and ended up £10k under my wage budget, and the club STILL isn't out of
administration! I know lower league management is meant to be a challenge,
but at least in CM3 you had a scope to do it in, and a bit of dosh.
Oh well, rant over. This could turn out to be a good lower league thread :)
Josh
PS:
Anyone looking for a decent striker should look at Leicester's Jonathon
Stevenson. He scored 3 hat tricks in 4 games for me last season, and hes
only 20 or so. He was in the reserves for ages, then injuries forced him
into my first team squad, now hes invaluable.
Eduardo Liguori
"Bugs" <martin...@nospam.program-products.co.uk> escreveu na mensagem
news:b8iuav$s64$1$8300...@news.demon.co.uk...
my only doubt is why haven't you offered longer contracts at the start, even
reducing some wages?
when you manage you should plann the future...
Bugs
> my only doubt is why haven't you offered longer contracts at the start,
even
> reducing some wages?
> when you manage you should plann the future...
>
Because as I said all the contracts were set already at the start of the
season, and the players wanted more than I was allowed to offer to renew the
contracts ( ie players wanted £1k+ and the highest I was allowed to offer,
even for a key player, was £950). So how am I supposed to get these players
on long term contracts?
Marc Robbins
"Kyoshi" <alsem...@hetnet.nl> wrote in message
news:b8j9ut$ooj$1...@reader08.wxs.nl...
> "Bugs" <martin...@nospam.program-products.co.uk> schreef in bericht
> news:b8iuav$s64$1$8300...@news.demon.co.uk...
> >
Snip
> > Bugs
> >
Snip Snip
> Kyoshi
Funny that Kyoshi, you said you don't cheat, then said you do!
Eduardo Liguori
sorry
lovetosaydada
I'm at Forest Green, and I've managed to get some of them to take a drop in
wages. Check out Russian Striker who is free at the beginning - Dmitry
Tcheryshev...God in lower divisions and you can pay him peanuts...:-)
mk
> Ah well, the struggle goes on, we currently have about 10 games left
> in the season and we have fought our way to about 8 points clear of
> the relegation zone (despite picking up one point from the first 15
> games). So hopefully I can survive this season ( if the board keeps
> letting me get away with being £2700 over the salary budget.
Try loaning players from higher divisions. In Cm4, it actually is possible
to loan players from Premier Div even when playing in the Conference or
Div3, and the clubs will usually accept loan bids even when you offer to
pay 0% of the player's wages. When managing East Stirling in the Scottish
3rd Division, I loaned five players from Celtic (Jack, Doyle, Smith, Miller
and Shields) and they all played exceptionally well, particularly Shields,
who scored 60+ goals and got 40+ assists. The downside to this is obviously
the limit of loaned players per seasons, but this is still a great way to
get good players for at least one season for absolutely nothing, and when
the loan expires the club will usually accept another 12-month loan bid,
and so on.
--
I will find a way
To sever myself
Exit all today
--
Serwis Usenet w portalu Gazeta.pl -> http://www.gazeta.pl/usenet/
Kyoshi
"Marc Robbins" <ma...@robbins46.freeserve.co.uk> schreef in bericht
news:b8jlvh$ol8$1...@news8.svr.pol.co.uk...
Well I said (or meant to say) that what I do, is not really cheating. How is
it possible to cheat when you are the only player, and there are no rules?
Baggers
> "Marc Robbins" <ma...@robbins46.freeserve.co.uk> schreef in bericht
> news:b8jlvh$ol8$1...@news8.svr.pol.co.uk...
> >
> >
>
> Well I said (or meant to say) that what I do, is not really cheating. How
> is it possible to cheat when you are the only player, and there are no
> rules?
In general a cheat is a method of gaining an advantage against the game that
either isn't supposed to exist or involved exploiting some sort of bug. As
such it is clearly possible to cheat when in a solo game of any variaty.
However cheating when you are the only person playing is acceptable. However
bragging about achievements (not that you have done), after using cheats is
considered bad sport since you are then effectively up against other people.
Baggers