f13.net

This game has supplanted Civ, EU and Dom and other strategy games -- I had played with FM10 a while back but never that deep and only for a few weeks. I was disappointed there wasn't more options to "randomize" and create fictional leagues and such. But I've dived into this and for the 1st time in a long time, "next turn" syndrome is assaulting my need for sleep.

I know people decry the Steam DRM but it is nice how I can matriculate the game to a number of different machines. On my desktop, I took command of LA Galaxy --  and then created some other "practice" game league setups where I tinkered and toggled with tactics. On the laptop (a Macbook Air, for which the game says cannot run at even one star, but does well from what I have observed thus far) I created a single nation/league with Greece, and started unemployed. Turned down a job offer and now just took command of a "B" team (of which I cannot even pronounce).

I like the improvements over previous version -- it seems like some of the UI has been streamlined, though I think I will grow tired of giving (or having assistant coaches perform) pep talks and "player interactions". But it's a deep sim and having fun

This review (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/10/26/wot-i-think-football-manager-2012/) made me want to go try OOTP (Out of the Park) Baseball 11, mentioned here and looks like it does the historical / fictional deal better.

You that have this -- how do you like it? In comparison to previous renditions? And how do you play -- do you start all sorts of games or just set up your favorite squad and proceed along for years? I wish the engine mechanics were more transparent -- I mean, how much influence do you really have? It's not like you can take the Lancaster Rattlers to elite status. I haven't seen FIFA 12 -- do some of the new FIFA 12 features come close to approximating the "management" part?

Some more reviews:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2011/oct/21/football-manager-2012-pc-mac?newsfeed=true
http://whatculture.com/gaming/pc-review-football-manager-2012.php
http://soccerlens.com/football-manager-2012-review/82736/

OOTP (at least the previous version) doesn't have nearly as slick a presentation as FM does, either on the interface side or during a game.

I can't say much to verisimilitude as I'm a big advanced metrics guy in baseball and only have a casual interest in soccer.  But from that perspective it did seem like OOTP was more about having to figure out true-talent from actual stats versus FM's player ratings being more transparent.

I didn't really dig into the historical seasons/settings at all as I mostly preferred to just field manage a current AA affiliate or the like.

FIFA 12's management features compared to FM 12 are as similar as paper football is to Madden 12. What you get in FIFA is a decent transfer market but with nothing like the depth of a Football Manager. FIFA 12 is about playing on the field. You could spend the entire time playing FM12 without ever watching a game sim, if you wish, and still have more than enough gameplay for a sim head.

So this is kind of like Baseball Mogul with actual production values (and a different sport)? I may have to check it out at some point.

Think I meant this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_Manager_12).

Ahh, NEVER MIND.  :awesome_for_real:

Careful, it's a life stealer. :uhrr:

edit: it's also slightly different in scope from FIFA Manager, although i'm only comparing the '11 versions. The FIFA game seems to swamp you with tons of things which feel quite more gamey (like deciding the purchases and placement of every single hamburger stand and restocking merchandise, or developing entire towns with amusement parks and skyscrapers for profit) Football Manager appears quite more focused on actual management and well, football.

For me, FM (formerly Championship Manager) is the best game of the decade.  It is both amazingly accessible and ridiculously complex at the same time.  Unfortunately, I haven't had enough time on the 2012 version to really feel the improvements.  Maybe this weekend.  I will say that I'm very atypical for the game's fan base.  I prefer to play with completely fictional players rather than rely on established teams and players.  I usually will start in one of the lower leagues in Ireland or England and work my club up the ranks.  It's a wonderful way to get a full appreciation for the complexity in the construction of the game.  While your club may have the talent to move up leagues, you immediately feel the financial constraints when trying to compete with larger (and richer) clubs.  It makes for a wonderful challenge, but often can lead to frustration. 

Tip: Make sure that you do some reading on setting up team and individual player strategies so that you get the most out of your player's performance.  It can take me quite a few matches to really flesh out how I want to play offensively and defensively before I hit the transfer market to fill gaps in my talent. 

LOVE THIS GAME!

Been playing the series on/off since 1993, and it's an awesome game.

A bit of trivia: The Football Manager-series was called Championship Manager from 1993 to 2004, at which point the developers (SI Games) split with the publishers (Eidos), signed a deal with a new publisher (Sega) to continue the series under a different name (Football Manager), while Eidos continued developing using the old name (Championship Manager) and a new codebase & team/player-database. Despite the confusion, the fans knew what was what, and while the FM-series has continued to bloom, Eidos ran the CM-series into a brick wall and are now developing iPhone versions, having dropped the PC as a platform for their game  :awesome_for_real:

I played Championship Manager a few years ago, and compared to Football Manager, it's crap. It feels the same on the surface, but the more you poke around with it, the thinner it feels.

Inside the game or external sources?

There is a ton of data and it can be paralyzing, especially if you're managing a low budget team and need to be exceedingly efficient in making decisions. In my laptop game, I keep trying to hire another scout (and I'm not even sure this is a prudent move), but I'm a couple hundred dollars short (of what is permitted by board) of hiring even the most "obscure" scout.


I was confused too, as evidenced by my OP -- I stumbled across references to EA FIFA 12 and assumed as you did until I did some more looking. And it's been a few years (I think it was FIFA 09 was the most recent XP for me -- and it was on a Wii, which I don't believe EA wholeheartedly adopted for the platform and just plopped in a version fit).

FIFA on the Wii is a goddamn abomination. :mob:

Yes it was disappointing in so many ways. But really, oddly, what was most irksome was that I tried to use the "classic" controller instead of the Wii-mote and it sort of worked, except for the function to "escape"/"go up" a menu option.

Try to look for staff with "personality: unambitious" on their personal description sheet. It seems these guys ask for considerably less money than others.

I've been playing FM (formerly CM, as you have already mentioned) since the first game back in 1992.

Currently, I've very little time to play it, especially because of my style of play: I love to micro-manage everything, and I watch every game (except pre-season friendlies) of my team on "full" or "extended highlights", so it takes quite a lot of time.
---

At the moment, just to check things around, I've decided to try out the Scandinavian area: selected Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Finland; playing in Sweden First Division south (below Superettan), with IF Limhamn-Bunkeflo 2007 (I'm still setting everything up).

My wonderful stadium in the Malmoe district:

I don't think I'll manage to post some kind of "story", too little time, but maybe I'll update you from time to time.

Anyways, down the road (and more patches) and I'll play my usual two-three other games:

- Havant & Waterlooville (English Conference South, career game)
- Manchester United (played with them since Championship Manager 2)
- FC Modena (Italian serie B, my hometown)

I decided to start my coach in SE asia. I figured since I don't know much about soccer, I wouldnt really know players from anywhere, and it might be fun to mess around in smaller leagues. I am currently helming the Singapore Young Lions. I decided to spend my very meager transfer budget on the tallest striker I could find, because asians are in general shorter, no? So I'm 5 games into my first season and Lloyd Brunson, American Giant and overall oaf has 5 goals, 4 of them headers.  :drill: He is a man among boys when the ball gets crossed into the box, but a total turnover machine if he gets the ball anywhere else.

I  :heart: this game.

Played those games a long time ago. Loved them. Might get this. How different is this from FM11 which I could get on steam ?

FM 2012 is on steam now also.  $39.99

I'm still debating if the 2012 version is significantly better than 11.  I don't use real players, so the updated rosters are meaningless to me.

There's a demo out so you can check the differences. At a glance the main improvements seem to be fleshed out management/recruitment for the youth team and better feedback on strength of your own team and the competition. Also, perhaps the ability to include/drop leagues on the fly for those who like to jump between various clubs as part of the career.

According to Steam I have almost 1800 hours in FM 2010, and I knew absolutely nothing about soccer when I bought it. Especially starting at the lower leagues this game will eat your soul. There's always a carrot to shoot for - try to avoid relegation, get promoted, then get to the Premier League, then get to European competition - plus buying and selling in the transfer market, developing players, upgrading your facilities, your backroom staff, build a new stadium. You just never run out of things to do.

And not even necessarily in this order. I took a second tier team predicted to get the relegation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warta_Pozna%C5%84) for my FM11 game and by some miracle managed to get them without save/load cheating to the group stage of Euro cup in their 2nd year (as result of winning national cup in year one) The prize money from that alone was triple the club's starting budget; going to come handy seeing how they have decent shot at promotion this year, too :grin:

If anyone is interested I made a six tier US league with promotion/relegation. If you want the mod or just more details send me a PM.

I've definitely been sucked into a vortex, and being consumed by this game.

And it doesn't help that I keep starting new games.

Doing OK in my current laptop game, where I took the mantle of the Portland Timbers -- revamped the squad, signed a bunch of international players on the cheap, loaded up with speedy D / M with speed and good passing skill, hoping they'll train into quality in other aspects. Kept the star striker on board and splurged on a good GK.  About 2/3 of the way through MLS season (2nd in the league, started unemployed and nabbed the position in Nov/Dec) and am in 3rd place in W. (an improvement over 8th place finish the previous season). However, I wish I knew what I was doing before I started as I've made a mess of things in some ways -- the MLS has stringent "registation" parameters and when players came off injured reserve, I had to juggle the squad roster… …and then, a couple international slots expired, and it looks like I'm on the hook for salaries of some departed players (and players I could have wheedled international slots / draft picks out of too!)… …and my roster is bare bones with the cap hitting me.

Still, squad is playing good -- I just do not have depth and injuries and suspensions will probably do my season in…

I am such a micromanager in this -- I've tried relying on assistants but gotten burned too much in blindly following their advice & edicts.

Did give OOTP Baseball a try and it feels like playing a spreadsheet, and worse, a spreadsheet where I do not know what influences what. FM is spreadsheet-like too, but it has soul and the engine, while partially opaque to a degree, has lots of the cues and indicators telling me what attributes do what.  Also, the lack of real logos in OOTP is chinch-y, though the random portrait generation is a nice touch. It's presentation also suffers.

On that note, for the Football Manager there's a great logo pack (over 15k of them, cover pretty much everything) available here (http://sortitoutsi.net/forum/topic/48912-shiny-logos-2011/)  It's for FM11, but FM12 appears to be backward-compatible so can be used with it, too.

Mmm... I do love me some FM. It is, as others have pointed out, a game that will consume you. The 2012 update is well worth the money. It is so well-designed and a pleasure to use. That sounded a bit pervy... ah well. Go get it if you've even a passing interest in football.

So I started trying this out, and as expected it is completely, 2000% overwhelming gibberish slash aggravating UI. But it does seem potentially kind of fun if I could ever figure out what the fuck is going on.

So for those with more FM experience, any beginner/basic tips? Are there particular areas of management to focus on that give unexpectedly high returns? Like obviously the transfer market is kind of key, but is there any benefit to customizing my players' training regimen? How important is morale? Youth development? What is the point of all these damn press conferences? Etc.

A link to some basic primer elsewhere would also be acceptable, but I want to avoid the full-fledged 'wiki of perfect strategy' effect where I find some site that plays the game on my behalf.

This any use?

http://www.gamefront.com/files/17682640 (http://www.gamefront.com/files/17682640)

Morale is probably pretty crucial -- high morale tends to make the players perform better on the pitch, and vice versa, losing a few matches and low resulting morale leads to 'playing nervously' or 'without confidence' in the following games. On the other hand, too high morale can lead to overconfidence and the players getting lazy, so it's careful act to balance.

The press conferences are one of tools which allow to manipulate it -- what you say can trigger a positive or negative 'PR' reaction in some of your players. Depending on what expectations you have before the match you can also affect the performance, or how big blow to morale it'll be to lose the forthcoming match, stuff like that.

Yep, good starting suggestions by tmp. Also:

- Training is VERY useful once you manage to master it, but realize that you can leave it totally alone (preset regimens) and you can do relatively fine as a beginner, while you first learn other basic game systems ;

- Youth Squad: again, I consider it an "advanced" game system, feel free to ignore it while you learn the basics ;

Here is one of the best training guides out there:

http://www.mantralux.com/2011/10/training-and-match-prep-masterclass/

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The official game forums are REALLY your friend, lots of people ready to give out advices (you have to register in order to read some of them):

http://community.sigames.com/index.php


If you are a total newbie, read the online official manual (you can also browse it while in-game):

http://www.footballmanager.com/webmanual


- For your first few games, do not start with a top tier euro club: yeah, feel free to stick to the (for example) english, italian or spanish championship, but choose a low (third tier or lower) profile squad: less players, less staff and scouts. Yes, abysmal attributes but at least you'll have a better idea of what's going on on a daily basis.

- Regarding tactics and attributes, there are various nuances that you won't pick up if you are totally new to (real) football, but anyway: 4-4-2 is your average starting tactic. Even for a total beginner, by looking at it I guess you can immediately realize that, in theory, it covers the entire field in a reasonable manner, both when it comes to attacking and defending. So yeah, use it then feel free to explore the more bizarre ones out there.

If you have time try to watch a good portion of a game with full highlights, not just "extended" or "key": especially as a beginner, you'll understand what that tactic means when it comes to the movement of your players on the pitch

- Do not underestimate how useful is to pick up the right players for your corners and free kicks

- Regarding the "opposition instructions", if your team and the other play with the same formation, it's a general good rule to "tight mark" and press the opposition wingers, tight mark the striker (or strikers, but DON'T press them, they'll lure you out of position).

Sometimes you may get lazy during the latter stages of a game, maybe you are ahead and you don't feel like changing things around.

- Still, if you are ahead in the score, 15-20 minutes to the final whistle and you're playing a team at your level or below, there is no need of course to have an aggressive and attacking attitude. Slower tempo, shorter passes so that YOU can dictate the flow of the game. But your team must show good composure and have a decent passing attribute (if you're playing a better team and you're ahead, counter-attack or total defending is a good tactic, instead).

On a related note, the time wasting bar is your friend in the latter stages of the game both if you are ahead or you're trying to tie the game. Use it.

Regarding press conferences and talking with your players, yep, Sports Interactive is trying hard to replicate the "psychological" aspect of the game. It's almost resembling some sort of weird roleplaying game now, but I like it.
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The modding community, given the tools, is almost comparable to the Elder Scrolls one: you can find interface skins, logos, kits, player faces and more. Here is a good place for that:

http://sortitoutsi.net/forum/  ("FM Graphics" section)

Also, experimenting with the set pieces instructions themselves.

Just yesterday i got quite annoyed with my free kicks always winding up in the goalkeeper's lap, and i made a change to aim for 'best header' instead. Result -- 3 goals scored in a single match that'd otherwise end up in a 0:1 loss. My fans were allegedly taunting the opposition fans about it during the game. :grin:

Or a promotion-worth goal scored in the last 5 minutes of the match -- because for defending the corners i set my central attacking midfielder to stick around the edge of the box. The ball got punched out, he grabbed it, raced across the entire field, passed to the poacher from the endline and that was, as they say, that.

Absolutely: it's also linked to the "lazyness" factor (or just, information overload) when you want to micro-manage everything, a trap you can often fall into: for example, thanks to your post, you reminded me that I have to change the position of one of my midfielders when an attacking corner is taken: he's 163cm tall short, decent enough shooting but somehow I insist in keeping him inside the area, when he should stay immediately outside ready to unleash a bomb or destroy the ankles of any counter-attacker :P

Fuckin' referee: Swedish Cup 2nd round, against a second tier (I'm third tier) team. They're nothing special, but I decide to start in a cautious manner, with a 4-1-4-1 formation. I actually give a nice, calm talk to my players, without putting too much pressure.

Well, by the seventh minute there are already two yellow cards shown, one for each team, and another one for my team around the twentieth. Still, they're isolated events, it's not like I'm constantly after the ankles of the others :P

My opponents are trying to get through, but my defense is always well placed: I planned on gradually switching to a more offensive attitude, but at minute 27 my guy who got a yellow card in the first few minutes of the match is sent off (a Defender Central) because of what appeared as a common foul.

So, ok, I take out a wide midfielder and put on a DC substitute (gave him a relaxed talk).....Who makes a foul in the subsequent action inside the penalty area!!!! Last man, sent off, Penalty scored, 0-1  and I'm down to 9 players.....FUUUUUUUUUUU  :uhrr:

What the hell?!?? Referee wanted to show off :(. So, one way or the other, score stays 0-1 'til minute 75: At that point I was on "extended highlights" and I thought: let's see if I can manage to tie the game...But during the highlight the opposition scores....Like it always happen in this cases when you just decided a brillant tactic to shake things around :P

Afterwards, my team collapsed and we lost 0-4.

During the press conference, I stormed out repeatedly shouting "The referee was a fuckin' joke". Damnit.

Some external links that may be of interest to FM12 players…

How to Upload Match Highlights to YouTube (http://www.fmscout.com/a-how-to-upload-match-highlights-to-youtube.html)

The Unofficial FM12 Guide (http://www.fm-view.com/fm12-guide.html)
Huge ~300 page PDF…

So does this game cheat on your behalf or am I just very lucky? So far my Ligue 2 team (predicted finish was I think 7th?) has lost one game out of 14, and we just beat Olympique Lyons in the French cup (albeit in overtime) to proceed to the quarter-finals. I'd like to pretend that my decision to set up in a 4-1-2-3 has unlocked my players' as-yet-untapped genius, and I did buy that one guy with Passing 15 (oo!) to help out in midfield, but this is starting to feel a little over the top.

That said: woo! Go LES HACS!

But also, relatedly, it seems like everybody on my team now wants to either be transferred or receive a renegotiated contract for like 2 to 3 times their previous wages.

Oh, and the team we beat in the cup round before Lyons is also in second place in Ligue 1.

I don't think it cheats, but there's enough room for the random generator to work its magic during the matches, they can go very differently -- it's noticeable if you repeat the same match with the same settings a few times. Things like who goes in the match motivated and who doesn't, how many players from the first team are available, who scores first and how it affects morale of guys on the pitch, knocks and injuries, penalties, lapses in defenders' concentration, or these favourite moments when someone goes crazy and hacks the opposition down with a two-legs tackle, earning themselves red card five minutes into the match :uhrr:

Yeah, there's definitely a lot of variation -- I crashed out of an easy victory only to have it go into extra time upon replay. On the other hand my team is now up to 1 loss out of 23 matches and has eclipsed the previous league record for consecutive victories by 50%.

Anyways, is there some way to get your board to raise your salary cap -- not in terms of overall available money, but in terms of the 'maximum salary' value for individual player roles? Because as mentioned my best central defender is currently asking for a renegotiated contract in which he gets paid 7k p/w more than I am even allowed to pay him (and 8k more than anyone else on the team.) This doesn't really bode well for his future at the club, or the club's future for that matter, since he's a pretty significant part of why they're doing so well.

Also despite my immaculate string of victories the club is apparently still losing like 200k a month or something absurd. We even set a new record for lowest attendance at a game. Hopefully we can score a sweet new sponsorship deal once we get promoted.

I find promotion to be the greatest challenge.  You end up in a higher league with a team that has 10% of the available cash, players on the transfer list reluctant to come to your club, and struggling through the first season to convince your board to increase operating capital.  I often make extensive use of loaned players until I can get enough quality to make a mid-table run.  It's a very fun and rewarding challenge, but staying up with no money can be trying at times.

Yeah that's what worries me -- that this might actually get worse before it gets better.

So 30 games into the season and I still have only three losses, including finally being knocked out of the French cup in the semi-finals. We are 8 points clear of the 2nd place team and 10 points beyond the non-promotion zone.

Meanwhile I have had to pay through the nose to re-sign my two center backs, and have had my star left winger decide to sign a pre-contract with a rival club (why you would sign away from a team that is nearly-guaranteed promotion is beyond me) despite my offering him the maximum amount of money the board would allow. Then in the space of a week I lost my stalwart, experienced left back AND his talented 17-year old backup to injury -- also injured in the same period? My best striker and my best defensive midfielder. That's four injuries to starting or near-starting players in two games.

The team's best on-paper central midfielder, meanwhile, began the season in recovery from a serious (5-7 month) knee injury -- he had finally recovered from the injury and was getting some game-time in a reserves match in an effort to build up his match fitness... and pulled his groin, putting him out for another 3-4 months.

And the latest reports inform me that the club is losing $1.2m per month. Ridiculous.

Related?

Barely. Together the resignings might account for like 100k of that, max. As far as I can tell the team was losing over a million a month when I first showed up -- I certainly saved them money by firing most of the ridiculously-overpaid coaching staff, if nothing else.

Edit: Of course, it's certainly not helping, either. But short of firing half the team I am not really sure what would help.

From playing the game in the past I remember solutions being:

A - Get a better job once you get promoted and have a bit of stature.
B - Fire everyone on a decent wage and pick the teeth out of the transfer market, then sell these players for $$ when the become stars rather than try keep them.

How much money did the club get at the early season ticket sales? I didn't play a top club yet, but all that I tried seem to have some negative cashflow throughout the year which is offset by the large chunk of money coming in at the beginning.

Well after a break from the game (and some time on another manager, spent coaching a backwater squad in the North-Irish third division) I got back to my Ligue 2 team and finished out the season. Despite a sudden inability to defend from set pieces Les Hacs coasted their way to the league championship, topping the table by 11 points and losing only six matches over the season. Goal differential was an impressive +35 and unsurprisingly both my center backs (the ones I am now paying more money than I can afford) were named to the ligue's allstar eleven, along with my goalkeeper. After finally making some money over the last few months, the club eventually finished out the year with what looks like a net loss of $1M.

I won Manager of the Year too, which will hopefully help me convince the club's Board to go even further into debt helping me buy players for next year's season. They already seem to have increased my allowed number of staff, which is a good start and all, but won't do much good if they don't also find some money to help me pay said staff.

Besides hitting 'Continue' over and over I am not exactly sure what to do with the offseason, once staff are hired and a training regimen set up. I guess I should see about some good Loan players and someone to replace my turncoat left winger (who signed a pre-contract with another Ligue 2 club with 2 months left in the season.) Interestingly enough, if I had thrown our last game of the season then said club would have failed to get promoted, dooming said winger to another season of Ligue 2 play, but I couldn't quite bring myself to lose a game on purpose, especially the final home game of the season.

Hmm, can anyone enlighten me about how loan signings work (in the game, not in real life)? I literally cannot seem to sign anyone on loan, or even make an offer for such -- the option is always grayed-out in the drop-down when I go to the Transfer Offer screen. These are players who are specifically listed as available for loan.

Relatedly, when I am doing a player search and I check the filter options to have my Assistant Coach remove 'unrealistic fee-paying loans' and 'unrealistic regular loans' the result is a completely empty search return. As in, apparently every single available player for loan is 'unrealistic' according to my Assistant Coach. Similarly, whenever I ask the AC to compile a loan report for a specific position, the result is that he cannot find anyone. This has been true across all my games, regardless of team, manager, location, etc.

Edit: Nevermind, I figured it out. (It was the transfer window.)

Hm. Anyone know whether accepting a higher wage for the position as manager affects the overall wage budget available for your team? If so, I don't see why I would ever accept a pay-raise, as there's nothing you can spend your personal wealth on anyway? :P

I haven't noticed either way; your personal wages are presumably some sort of measuring-stick of awesomeness/progress, but I've certainly wished more than once that I could garnish my own wages to hire better coaching staff.

99% sure your wages are counted in the overall finances. Although you can't negotiate a lower wage you might consider negotiating for a longer contract at the improved amount, preventing the club from force-raising your wages until the new - and now much longer - contract nears its end. Of course, that also makes you slightly less attractive to other clubs as a manager as they'd have to pay larger compensation to your current club (based on amortised contract value) to hire you, and negotiating for a longer contract implies loyalty to your current employers, which further puts off suitors. Dunno if that matters to you.

OOtP12 is on sale from the dev's main site for $20. I'm thinking about picking it up over FM only because I'm not sure that I want to pay $40 for a sim game. Is OOtP endorsed by Major League Baseball? All of the logos I've seen from screenshots look like placeholders.

Another thing I'd like FM for is to get a better understanding of the massive amount of leagues out there. The extended downtime between matches on BF3 means I need to find something better to do than grab a beer or pour a drink while I wait.

Choices, choices. I'm just torn right now. Should I wait on a Steam sale for FM or does the price stay mostly static?

All the logos and icons in OOtP are not "official" -- they are generated, be it for MLB cities or fictional teams/leagues.

I think OOtP does the fictional league construct better -- you can create your own custom leagues with varying number of teams and playoffs and even minor leagues. But it all still feels like a spreadsheet sim and although they've added FM like elements, it just seems to lack the "soul" that FM possesses.

Don't know about pricing but I believe I picked up FM10 ~6 months after release and it was discounted.

Baseball Mogul is usually considered to be the 'best' of the baseball management sims (although I am probably a few years out of date on that) and does have all the real (and lots of historical no-longer-existing) teams.

It's already been on sale on Steam for $29.99 I think. I expect it to go on sale next week during the Steam sales, and I know I picked it up for $20 this past spring.

I would argue that the stats engine on Mogul is the weakest among baseball sims (compared to OOTP and Strat).  Mogul does have more personality to it, but the algorhithms are VERY easily manipulated. 

Wow. I didn't realize/forgot that Strat-O-Matic had a PC version. I used to play the card game during winters when I was a teenager.

I tried the demo for OOtP and it didn't really grab me but I'll give it another shot. OTOH, I spent about five hours on the FM Demo before I even started my first match. I'm a sucker for the sleek look, even if the navigation confused me a little bit. I have no idea who a lot of the players are (even in the Premier League) but it's still a lot of fun.

I don't think I knew there was a PC Strat-o-matic either. Interesting.

It's a bit old and dated... not to mention expensive.  I believe that you used to have to purchase the seasons individually.  Perhaps the engine has been given an upgrade since I last played with it in 99/00

For those who haven't gotten this yet, it's on sale on Steam today for 60% off, or if you already own it, you can gift it to someone for 75% off. They just released the winter updates with all the roster moves up through last week. I've barely had time to scratch the surface but just what I've seen in hour or so I've played is a big improvement over the already-fantastic 2011.

I'm finally starting a big career game and it's looking fantastic as ever, especially if you also install the facepacks, logos, kits, try out a few skins and the scoreboards.

Regarding the skin, I'm using Fahreneit and Flex 2012.

Fahrenheit:
http://sortitoutsi.net/forum/topic/54624-fahrenheit/

Flex 2012:
http://sortitoutsi.net/forum/topic/54416-flex-12/

Scoreboards look amazing:
http://www.dazs8.com/#/scoreboards/4560166878

Got this last week and in my second season with West Ham, breezed through top of the Championship first season. Second season started off dreadful, I slumped to 12 points in 14 games even got trounced 7-2 by Spurs. Then a watershed moment occurred when I beat Arsenal 3-1, now up to 35 in 25 & looking cosy at mid table.

I've also somehow managed to compile an all-star backroom, Steven Gerrard retired at age 32 is my shooting coach, Andy Cole is an attacking coach and Martin Keown. I have Faustino Asprilla scouting South America & Roberto Baggio in Italy, very pleased with how that worked out.

Haven't played FM(CM) in about eight years but this game hasn't lost it's charm.

I'm away from the Comp right now and it would be great to have an app that let you look at your team and/or the transfer market from the phone. I'm sure my efficiency in RL would not suffer... :P

This title got shelved back in spring, and the addiction waned.

Then, recently, just finished reading Soccernomics and it compelled me to fire up FM12 and rekindled addiction, to the level unforeseen, harkening back to MMOG days (and before, old school RTS/Civ/SimCity times) where sleep, family and career time is sacrificed at the altar of a computer game.

Did a hardcore start, sitting out an entire season until taking a spot with AELK (I believe located on the island of Lesbos, though S. European natives can correct me here) in Greek B Division. Took the 14th place finisher and just missed out on a promotion to Superleague, finishing 4th, and then 2nd in the promotion stage (top 2 finishers earn automatic promotion, finishers 3-6 do a home/away round robin with the top finisher then attaining the final promotion bid). Was actually at the top of the table for several weeks before fading at the end.

Overspent on some talent and got burned as I did not realize the restrictions (can only "register" 3 non-EU players and only 2 can be in the 11 on the pitch, and 5 non-Greek players max too). A Nigerian striker for a surge found his old glory days but petered out to the end. A Brazilian playmaker sparkled far above his cited ability score, but he prone to injury and moodiness.

Just getting ready for the 2nd season at the helm, have spent a little more prudently, but snatched up some excellent defenders and a prized young AMF, at not too much dent into the salary structure, including a couple of 5 star Champion League reject prospects, who might not be ready for the big time, but should flower and dominate Greek B league ;)

Board decided to build a stadium, which is befuddling since the one squad plays in only fills up when a higher reputation squad comes to town.

Greek-onomics  :grin:

Sorry about necro but didn't see a newer FM thread. Anyway FM 13 50% off on steam for like the next 5 hours.

Any idea if the game contains anything more than a personnel update from 2012?

According to the pre-release hype, there's something like 800 new things in the game besides just new rosters. I bought it and played a good bit tonight. The 3D match engine is much improved. There's also a new mode (Classic Manager mode) that's supposed to be streamlined for those with less time to play.

Been holding out on pulling the trigger on this. The "Classic Manager" mode not appealing as if I want to run a streamlined sim it's going to be on a tablet. 3D match engine improvements is an enticing feature upgrade though…

Ya the 3D match engine looks nicer and flows better. Looks more natural.  Also after half of a season I've only seen one own goal.  Hopefully I haven't just been lucky but really felt in 12 own goals happened way too much. A lot of little changes all over the place. Training system completely redone, still figuring it out. Seems streamlined a lot from 12 so far.  Not sure I'd been happy paying $40 to upgrade from 12 but for $20 I jumped on it and don't regret it.