FM05 too easy?

[Sammy the seagull]

Anyone else think its too easy?
I did have one with brighton till it got wiped some how, i was in 9th place after about 25 games and i was on a f***ing good run.

Now im doing one with real madrid, and i know there a great team but this is stupid.

League table so far-

Pl w d l for ag gd pts
Real madrid 26 21 4 1 100 13 +87 67
Deportivo 24 16 4 4 47 13 +34 52


Biggest home wins-

11-0 against R.Sociedad
9-0 Levanta
6-0 Racing

Biggest away wins-

7-0 Numancia
6-0 Malaga
6-1 Numancia (cup)

Best wins-

3-0 Barca away
3-0 Arsenal away (champ league)

 

[Basil Fawlty]

Not playing it anymore can't be bothered, Waiting for FM 2006 to come out.

 

[¡Cereal Killer!]

I have just started a new game and I am just about to start second season with Lewes after getting them promoted to the Conference National

Will proberbly buy FM2006 when it comes out or will see how my current game materialises

 

[RonnieO'Sullivan]

Anyone else think its too easy?
I did have one with brighton till it got wiped some how, i was in 9th place after about 25 games and i was on a f***ing good run.

Now im doing one with real madrid, and i know there a great team but this is stupid.

League table so far-

Pl w d l for ag gd pts
Real madrid 26 21 4 1 100 13 +87 67
Deportivo 24 16 4 4 47 13 +34 52


Biggest home wins-

11-0 against R.Sociedad
9-0 Levanta
6-0 Racing

Biggest away wins-

7-0 Numancia
6-0 Malaga
6-1 Numancia (cup)

Best wins-

3-0 Barca away
3-0 Arsenal away (champ league)

 

[Marc]

no...its not...not for me anyway!

 

[RonnieO'Sullivan]

no...its not...not for me anyway!

is with any half decent where u get about 10 million........

just buy crespo and veron for cheap and bobs ur fathers uncle....

 

[Marc]

I always play LLM stuff anyway, as soon as I get to the championship it gets hard! same in Scotland with the 'BEATH, got them to the 1st and its like someone turns the difficulty up a notch.

 

[sirmax2004]

the games easy if you play with someone that has money. its a lot more challenging(and fun) when you play with lower league teams. demo of 2006 looks good and will be purchasing it when its released

 

[Barnet Seagull]

Within the CM and FM Communities are to be found the LLaMas. LLaMas are Lower League Managers who play the game in the Lower League Manager (LLM) way. There are also zealots, who are also LLaMas, but of a slightly different breed - more about them later.

You may or may not have already been to the official sites of CM and FM and seen the LLM forums there. You only have to spend a minute or two on the sites to see just how popular LLM really is.

So what is the LLM way? Why is it so different and why do the LLaMas play it?

Well, let me start - I'll give you some answers in brief so you can get a quick idea of what it's all about, and there'll also be details of what you can find within the official LLM pages - for further reading should you be interested.

LLaMas always start by managing lower league clubs. They do this because they want a challenge - they want to start at the bottom and work their way up. There is no challenge when you start with a club like Manchester United, where you already have all of the players and the facilities in place in order to succeed. It's true, LLaMas do dream of making it to those dizzy heights - but for them, it could take years of playing the game, and they may become manager of several different clubs of ever increasing stature on their way. On the other hand, they could quite easily become relegated and have to wait for an approach by another club for a few months before even getting back in management.

But LLM is not just about starting with a lower league club. A true LLaMa will put himself (or herself) in the position of a lower league manager and will therefore find things a little (or a lot) more difficult. There are a whole set of LLM rules that must be read, digested and indeed followed at all times if you are to play a true LLM game. The official rules have been in place for years and were originally developed, and and are now modified and amended as seen fit by the most established of LLaMas.

In essence, this is what the official rules contain:-

i) Never use an editor. Period.

ii) Pick a team from the lowest league of the country you have chosen to manage in. Stick with them until you're sacked (and have to wait for another job), or until you achieve everything you possibly can with that team, or until you get a job offer that you wish to accept in order to make progress.

iii) Turn on the Fog of War (attribute masking) to boost your LLM experience by covering up some of the players' attributes in order to force scouting.

iv) No use of pre-designed tactics and cheat tactics.

v) No quitting on a match and starting it again if you're losing.

vi) Never tip or be tipped - whether it's players, tactics or anything else relating to your game for that matter.

vii) No previous knowledge (of players from any of your past experiences) should ever be used to find players to sign.

viii) Find players by scouting them first, or by seeing them in action against you.

Let me explain a little about the last point and how players can be 'found'. The way a LLaMa finds his players can vary from LLaMa to LLaMa, and there have already been lots of questions posted about this on the official sites. The whole 'What can I do/can't I do to get my players?', is really down to the individual and has been described as a sort of 'grey-area' on the official LLM pages.

You will no doubt already be aware of the search screen. Some LLaMas will use it and some won't. Zealots (mentioned earlier) will always avoid the search screen, as they are of the opinion that such a list does not exist in real life and is therefore unrealistic and should not be used. Other LLaMas argue that the search screen should be a part of their LLM game. The important thing to bear in mind is the realism factor. Whilst you are playing your LLM game, and considering what you should and should not allow yourself to do to find your players, keep asking yourself the same question - 'Is what I am doing realistic?'. 'Would I, the manager of this lowly club, really know about all of those players on the search screen?'. If you think that there are too many players on the search screen and you couldn't possibly know about all of them as a lower league manager, then filter the list, block some players out or do as a zealot does, and avoid it altogether. In any case, LLaMas that do use the search screen will often send their scout to a player that is included on the search screen before they make any sort of an approach to sign him anyway.

Now, say you don't have a scout - then what? Well, in that case it's OK to use the search screen to identify players that are out of contract (not at a club currently) - and to offer them trials as you see fit. This would apply mostly to a zealot however, as they normally avoid using the search screen and rely heavily upon their scouts alone to find players for them.

So it seems that the rules for finding and signing players are not really rules as such. Infact they are guidelines and not rules. Hopefully then, you can see that there is a little flexibility in this area of a LLM game, and at the end of the day, it is your LLM game and you are to decide for yourself what you will and will not allow yourself to do when searching for players. That said, I must repeat that your LLM game should always be kept as realistic as it possibly can be given your club's current status and the circumstances surrounding it. It won't be easy then, but providing it is kept realistic and you don't go for players that you already know about from previous games or players someone has told you about, and providing you make good use of your scouts to find out as much as you can about players before you sign them, then you will be playing a true LLM game.

And what about loans? Again, we are talking about guidelines here. Zealots will often scout a player they want to loan. However, it is accepted amongst LLaMas that players can be loaned without scouting them first.

You will also be aware of the 'find player' function. As a new manager at your chosen club, you know of no other players except your own - so to find a player using 'find player' is out of the question as you would have to put a name in for him to be found. The star man from your last game (be it a LLM game or not) may have scored most of your previous club's goals, and he might even still have been improving where you left off, but no matter who the player was, you don't know about him at the start of your new LLM game.

Now, to continue where I left off, here are the last few rules that are regarded as 'set in stone':-

ix) Staff at the club should be signed only if they speak the same language as the majority of the players. The exception to this is the scouts, who do not come face to face with the players on a regular basis and would therefore not necessarily have to speak the same language as them.

x) Only send your scouts to those nations you can tour to (SWYCT - Scout Where You Can Tour). An addition to this rule was SYB (Scout Your Borders) - and applies to nations other than the UK and Ireland. For example, if you were managing in Norway, you could perhaps tour to Denmark and Sweden, so with SWYCT you could only send a scout to those countries. But with the inclusion of SYB, you could also scout Russia and Finland - as they are your bordering countries. Again, it's the realism factor that applies here. A lower league club would have insufficient funds to send a scout from England to Australia to find players - so don't do it. Also - and I return to what you should do and what you should not do to find players to sign - ask yourself if a player from Argentina (for example) that crops up on the search screen (if you use it), would really be prepared to travel to England (for example) to take a trial. Would he really be prepared to join your club for a part-time wage and give up everything back home to make the move? Again, if you think not, don't sign him.

xi) And finally, regarding the playing of the game itself, there are usually one or two clubs (maybe more) in the lowest league of a country that are probably best avoided. They would be the clubs that have unusually good facilities and staff to start off with. You may also find that they have a far bigger bank balance than any of the other clubs in the league at the start of your new game. So try to pick a club that is going to give you a real challenge, and that way your game will be much more satisfying. And if you are struggling to pick a team or a country to begin with, then let the random team generator do it for you. You can find the random team generator at the top of the LLM forums at www.sigames.com.

So that concludes this introduction to playing the game LLM style. To get further information, be sure to visit www.sigames.com (you'll need to register first) and take a look at the 'LLM Rules, Guidelines and Links' - they are the official rules. Also, on the same site, and a very good read I might add, is the 'LLM History Q&A Thread'. Within the LLM pages of www.championshipmanager.co.uk, you'll find threads such as 'Playing the Game LLM Style', 'An End to Player Naming', 'LLM Suggestions' and 'LLM Off-Topic'. Also on www.championshipmanager.co.uk, there's a thread in the Off-Topic section with the title '*Official* LLM/OTF Q&A Thread*. It's aim is much the same as this thread - to give you the information you need to start and continue playing a true LLM game. And on both sites you'll be able to see some of the games that people are involved in as they post their updates.

 

[Grendel]

I got Lewes into the Conference in my first season and struggled valiantly to keep them there with a transfer budget of £0 in my second season, scraping it by two points. Having avoided relegation, the board then decided that they wanted me to achieve promotion to League Two in Season 3 and very generously gave me a budget of £4,000 to help. If I'd had the transfer and wage budget of Madrid then obviously I would have obliterated every team I encountered, but where would be the fun in that?

 

[Sammy the seagull]

I got Lewes into the Conference in my first season and struggled valiantly to keep them there with a transfer budget of £0 in my second season, scraping it by two points. Having avoided relegation, the board then decided that they wanted me to achieve promotion to League Two in Season 3 and very generously gave me a budget of £4,000 to help. If I'd had the transfer and wage budget of Madrid then obviously I would have obliterated every team I encountered, but where would be the fun in that?

But you wouldnt get madrids budget at lewes, remember im playing very good teams and im winning to easy.i have done one with brighton but even that was quite easy, ( did not finish season tho cos it got wiped)