Football Manager Mobile 2018

[W1LL]

Anyone play this game? I bought it on release, worked through most of the Challenge Modes. Only just started my first Unemployed career, with English, Italian and Dutch leagues loaded.

Currently Lincoln City in March 2018. Objective to avoid relegation, currently 9th in the league, 33 points above the relegation zone with 10 games left. I'm looking to stay with Lincoln for a few years, maybe get them promoted and improve their training and youth facilities.

[Boxing Logic]

havent played it lately but years ago I played FM. The loop of selling and signing players, then implementing them in your own creative tactics, and then getting to watch the fruits of your mind play out in a pretty well done 3D match simulation of soccer, is one of the best gameplay loops in all of gaming. I'd put it up there next to Diablo and Starcraft and Overwatch and WOW in terms of addictiveness, except this actually accomplishes it with single player, those need multipler to do it.

However, at least in past games, the AI as the seasons go on is so bad, and the signing negotiations and training options and everything else is so limited and repetitive, that it can get old. Still, simply the signing/tactical loop would still hold up forever if only the challenge held up. But the problem with the AI in past games is that, for example, once Wayne Rooney got old in my FM10 saves, Manchester United would never sign a replacement, and they would start to suck. And the same would happen with every team, even Barcelon and Madrid. I became such a big club in England for example with random teams like Swansea or something that I could sign Lionel Messi from Barcelona by the time he was 28 or 29 or something in FM10, which you would think would be really fun, right? Except I had been playing Barcelona in the Champions League final most years, and once I signed Messi, they never spent the money on someone else. There was never any "PSG pays 200 mil for Neymar" or whatever. So basically after a few seasons, all the challenging opponents degrade, while you become a superteam, and it becomes much less interesting after awhile.

Also, once you go create a new game after that happens with a new team, you already know who most the best young players are in the game and how they will develop, so that allows you another huge advantage. You can turn on some setting to change all the player names so there are no real life players, but who wants to do that? If they made the AI better they could adjust for that by making it so all the "scouts" of all the AI clubs know the best young players to, so that there is tons of competition to get every single one, and even if you know who the best 100 are, you can only be successful in signing the 5 or 10 that will choose your team, while the rest get scooped up by Madrid, Barcelona, Chelsea, etc etc. But it doesn't work like that. You have almost no competition in signing anyone you want, even as a smaller team. Yes, you cant sign superstars, but you can pick off 90% of the best prospects that you want.

If they fixed those things, or if they have, then it would be a truly amazing game. I havent played in like 5 years so maybe they have, but I doubt it because they never fixed any of that stuff from like 05 to 12 that I played.

[W1LL]

Yea they've fixed that now. Every team ends up stocked up with top players in a couple of transfer windows. I don't know how the AI works but most clubs for example in the Premier League get top players in. Like Swansea and West Brom getting players who'd probably push for a place in a top 6 side.

Another thing which seems more prominent at smaller clubs is "Big Club Release" clauses in player contracts. Basically, I'm in League One with Lincoln City and over half my squad has that clause. A bigger side come along with a reasonable bid and it's auto-accepted. This works right up to teams outside the Elite having players nabbed by the big boys in this way.

My only gripe so far is the Manager Reputation thing. I've been at Lincoln three game years now, won the League Two play offs in first year and consolidated in second and third. We're now an established League One side. Yet I have 267 manager points and am still Local reputation. I get the feeling I can stay at Lincoln for five game years and push for promotion to the Championship and I will still be Local.

I can't find a list of manager Reputation levels anywhere. Like, 1000 = Regional, 5000 = National, etc. I just can't find it anywhere. I guess actually winning some silverware would give the points a good bump.