Football, Tactics and Glory

[Browning]

3rd season in the 'Second League' and we finish 9th again. However, we won the Prestige Cup! Unfortunately I didn't pick a sponsor with a high bonus for it as I didn't see it happening, but we netted 80,000 or so for the final. It means that over the 2nd part of the season I saved up nearly 450,000 but I've just spent most of it to increase capacity to 2000. It'll hurt us short term as that could have bought us a new starter and some increased depth (which we are desperate for) but long term it should pay dividends. We're improving slowly, but I can see us staying at this level for quite a while longer.

End of season Bonuses:
Newnham- 4th in Goals Scored in the Cup
Gildersleeve- 5th in Goals Scored in the Cup.
Murch- 5th in Assists in the Cup, 1st in assists in the league.
Veale- 6th in Assists in the Cup
Fuggle- 3rd in Tackles in the Cup
Clark- 6th in Tackles in the Cup
Armer- 9th in Tackles in the Cup
Lovel- Also 9th in Tackles in the Cup
Sevier- 3rd in Saves in the League, 1st in saves in the Cup.

Nets us a total of 71 points with the highest being Sevier with 23 and Murch with 19.

[Browning]

In our 4th attempt at this division we've had our best first half a season yet with a record of 6 wins, 3 draws and 4 losses with 12 scored and 7 conceded over the 13 games. If we could finish a few more chances we'd be laughing. We seem to only concede to skills or crosses, neither of which we can do well, giving the AI a big advantage. Still looking for the 5th defender to let us change formation.

[Ian]

Survived relegation on the last day of the season on goal difference. Fucking hell.

[Browning]

Wound up finished 7th in our 4th season in the division, which is out best finish and we were actually in a promotion battle, but never looked likely.

I've just sold Murch despite his 83 passing stat because he was 33 years old and I'd soon lose him for nothing. While I could have held on a year, I had a chance to get a 22 year old with 62 passing for around £200k less and given he'd cost me another 150k to renew his contact, I had to do it. Gutting because he was a hero for us with so many assists.

Switching to a 5-2-3 even though the 5th defender isn't great. Veale, a defender who played his entire career for us up front, was also sold and replace with a striker who is better at holding the ball up than he was. He'll always have the moment when he scored a last minute winner against Pompey by dribbling past the keeper

[Pepe]

Scoring from headers.

[Browning]

Wish I had any idea how to do that....

5th year in the 2nd Division and at the half way stage the table is:

Bradford- 34
West London- 26
Sheffield FC- 26
- - - - - - - -
Birmingham City- 26
QPR- 25
Fulham- 23

I renamed all the London teams to who I assume they're meant to be (though for some reason the only team I can find that match Arsenal has been languishing between the First and Second leagues the entire time, not even close to the PL). I assume my team is Brentford, but I've not renamed them.

Ironically I had my worst ever start to a season with 1 point from the opening 3 games and then stumbling to a 1-0 over relegation fodder Chester, but we've improved dramatically and moved up to 2nd just now with a 1-0 win over Birmingham. We've scored 22 (Newnham actually outscoring Gildersleeve by 10 to 8) and Archer, the youngster bought in to replace Murch leads the league in assists.

So far so good. Not sure we're good enough to go up.... but being in the conversation is a first. Still unsure about the Sweeper because it leaves me exposed to the shitty Rainbow Faint, but seems worth it for the other contributions they make.

[Pepe]

Finished second on the Amateur League. Beaten on goal difference.

[Pepe]

Third division is tough. Having to play for the 0-0 far too often here.

[Ian]

Scoring from headers.

Olympic Kicks.

[Pepe]

Didn't know that was possible. I'll have to give it a try.

[Browning]

It's only possible if you have the skill for it.

[Browning]

Opening 3 games of the season:
Sheffield 2-1 West London
West London 0-0 Wigan
Bradford 3-0 West London

Reverse Fixtures:
West London 2-1 Sheffield (We also have a 1-0 win over them in the first leg of the cup Quarter Final)
Wigan 1-3 West London (We knocked them out of the cup last round beating them 3-1 and then drawing 2-2 with our reserves)
West London 1-0 Bradford

It's finally clicking. Shocked we beat Bradford who totally smashed us last time (I actually seem to recall we were lucky it wasn't 5 or 6-0).

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Olympic kicks are too overpowered.

They're fucking fabulous though, especially when you have a sweeper with the skill.

[Browning]

Just realised why there's no Arsenal team... I must be playing as them (though it's a bit weird they were called "West London").

I didn't realise the team you choose starts at the bottom, I figured that I was only given the choice of bottom teams, but guess not.

I therefore have no idea who "Big London FC" or "Kingston FC" are. The badge makes Kingston look like Wolves but it's clearly not. Big London is probably Charlton or Orient I guess....

[Ian]

Season has started with a load of absolute horseshit from the RNG.

In that last one I had three shots on goal at point blank range, 48 vs 26 (worst goalie I've seen in this division by a mile), every one a save.

They have one shot from range at 25ish vs my goalie's 48 or so and it goes in.

[Pepe]

Your players are lacking BOTTLE.

Barely avoided relegation from the Third Division on my first go. Had to sell my very good 'keeper as his contract was expiring. Now I'll have to play a not so good one. Nothing in the transfer market to spend the money on either.

My team is looking weak as fuck. Avoiding relegation will be tough.

[Browning]

Missed promotion on the final day. Went to Birmingham needing a point and got beat by a fucking rainbow faint. Cunts.

Ultimately it was losses to midtable Blackpool and Reading not long before the end of the season that did us in though. We were in the promotion places all season until the last day.

On the upside, we've made the Cup Final which I can now go and lose.

Edit- Got raped 3-0 by QPR in the final. An olympic kick, a rainbow faint and the cannon one. Fucking awful.

Got 86 end of season point things with the highlights being Gildersleeve being top scorer in the league with 19 goals and Archer providing the most assists with 12.

[Browning]

Half way through my next season (probably my last with the epic strike force of Newnham and Gildersleeve) and we're only 1 point worse off than last year, but somehow 4 points adrift of promotion. The top 3 just never slip up unless it's against each other, so looks like yet more disappointment. We did however invest 1.2m (most of which came from making the cup final) into the stadium which has left us playing 2 green defenders in most games, but should bring us more reliable income to strengthen later, I hope.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Managed to scrape 6th after a bad start and I managed to find a fucking monster of a CB in the transfer window.

21 years old, 102 defence and a mammoth 81 control.

[Browning]

Sold my 84 rated Goalkeeper who was 32 years old for about 1.6m and bought in a replacement who was 78 rated, much younger and only cost about 300k. He's the first good keeper I've seen in ages and I needed a younger one. Invested a chunk into the Youth Team but still have about 800k in the bank which we will add to before the next transfer window. It'll be the first time I have serious funds to play with. I could spend it now, but there's no one leaping out at me as worth it.

[Pepe]

I am having trouble scoring and therefore winning. I think I'll get relegated back into the Amateur League.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Lids.

My keeper is now worth a staggering 12.7m.

[Ian]

I am having trouble scoring and therefore winning. I think I'll get relegated back into the Amateur League.

This is where I'm at. having a healthy numerical advantage for the RNG against an AI goalie seems largely worthless.

For me I mean, of course. The computer thrashes them past mine at a disadvantage for lols.

Did manage to exploit a weak goalie in my last game there for a change though and won 2-0 but I'm not making the progress in the third league that 'How or Browning did.

[Browning]

How much accuracy does your top striker have Pepe/Ian? I think Newnham was high 60s and that was good enough at that level. He’s improved into the low 80s now and still holds his own in the second. I assume you can still sell people at 34 but not 35, right?

[Ian]

I've got one at 62 and one at 54 I think. Need more skills to get them into position though. My AM with false kick and layoff pass is good for that. If I draw a defender out with FK then layoff my 52-CTR striker into the box I can draw a lot of fouls.

[Pepe]

My best one has 40 accuracy and my second one 24 I think.

[Pepe]

My best striker is about to retire too. I'm completely fucked.

[Giggles]

What exactly is this? An FM clone?

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Half FM, half Xcom basically.

[Disco]

Not really, the matches are more turn based strategy with abilities for players etc. Amazingly in this day and age there is a free demo to have a play with.

[Browning]

It's a turn based strategy football game, but with a manager side to it as well (buying/selling players, investing in the stadium/youth team etc). There is a free demo on Steam, so it's worth giving it a go.

[Giggles]

Not really, the matches are more turn based strategy with abilities for players etc. Amazingly in this day and age there is a free demo to have a play with.

From a skim I don't see what system it's for.

[Danny]

PC.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3...actics__Glory/

[Disco]

Demo here too:

http://www.creoteam.com/football-tactics-glory/

[Giggles]

Sound. Downloading it now.

[Danny]

I enjoyed it but the demo didn't really get me engrossed in the game. I might pick it up in future though.

[Browning]

I'm fairly sure skills are completed rigged against the player. I've spent years teaching Gildersleeve rainbow faint due to how much the CPU rapes me with it, but even at the max level, his max roll is always 5 Vs 10 whereas the CPU never has that issue. To top it off, whenever I use it to go past a defender, 2-3 other defenders get an automatic chance to tackle him, but when the CPU does it to me, mine don't get the same chance (despite having that ability when people run next to them). Oh and my keeper has the 'reaction' ability which is meant to stop the rainbow faint but never does. Complete shite.

[Ian]

There's a post on the Steam forums with one of the devs getting really shirty saying they have no motivation to rig the RNG but I'm still not convinced. or if it's not rigged it's a little broke.

[Browning]

I'm sure I'm going to get RNGed out of promotion again, but I just beat Cardiff which felt fucking amazing. Gildersleeve sinking them 1-0 with a rainbow faint.

Unfortunately we only took 1 point from 2 games against Leeds and Wolves which should have been 4 points but for RNG fucking us over with ridiculously high chances to score.

With 2 games to go, the table is:

Cardiff- 55
Leeds- 51
Wolves- 51
- - - - - -- - -
West London- 49
Fulham- 47

If those chances had gone in I think we'd be there by now... but all we can do is pray in these final 2 games.

[Browning]

Fucking hell.

We took on 10th place Southhawk and beat them 2-1 due mainly to me subbing off all my good players at 1-0 and 2-0 to rest them for the final game. Leeds slipped up to a draw putting us level on points.... but they were ahead of goals scored with our goal difference being the same. The mission was obvious.... complete gung ho against Blackpool. We lead 4-0 as Blackpool got the ball for what should be the final time (3 moves to go) but they didn't use all their moves, giving us a final chance. We picked out Gildersleeve who had already netted 4 times and the chance of him scoring was 95 to 8 or something similar. Of course he rolled a 2 into the keepers 4. I was almost certain Leeds would also win by 4.... but nope. They only managed a 3-1 win over Bristol and finally, finally we're heading to the championship.

[Pepe]

Relegated.

[Ian]

Pep.

I am comfortably mid table in my second season in Division 3. Started with an eye-watering string of 0-0s but have managed to win some since. Promotion is probably too far away though.

[Browning]

1 game into championship life and I am convinced we are going straight back down. Every player has multiple skills...

[Browning]

Are fans capped at 80,000 the whole time, or is it something to do with my league/team ability. I got to 80,000 while still in the second league but it doesn't ever go up now.

[Browning]

Half way through the 1st season in the "First Division" with a record of 4 Wins, 8 Draws and 3 Losses. That gives us 20 points, 5 clear of the drop zone and 7 off promotion. It's really fucking tough, but we're not getting destroyed like I feared.

The pressing need is to get younger in defense and up front. My current starters at the back are 34, 32, 33, 24 and 26 with the 26 year old being vastly inferior to the other 4. Up front Newnham is now 34, Gildersleeve is 33 and Parker who I use for control is 29. Newnham may well need to leave in January before we lose him for free. What a servant he has been.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Capped at 80k.

I've been in the premiership for a while and it's stayed strong even though I get at least 2400 fans a match.

[Browning]

Newnham retired I figured I had until the end of the season, but no.

I'm probably going down. Form has fallen off a cliff and we're only 2 points clear now.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Came second which is best yet. Lost to Lazio in the European Cup on penalties after a 2-2 draw over both legs and I lost in the quarterfinals of the FA Cup on away goals to Liverpool due to a 91st minute olympic kick.



Keeper is still fucking amazing ofc.

[Browning]

Well that was a season of 2 halves. Lost 3 games in the first half of the season but 8 in the 2nd and went down by 2 points. Absolute shite.