Hi all, I have a philosophy towards tactics in the wonderful FM that you may find interesting. Here's the overview anyway- all feedback appreciated:
Slider Apathy: Template Tactics and General Overview
After much ado, discussion, dispute and perplexion, here are the final templates for the Slider Apathy approach. A quick recap is necessary I feel, to explain the approach and thinking behind the theory, so here it is.
I’m fascinated by the tactical aspects and nuances of this game. People like wwfan and his peers provide no end of fascinating, thorough and concise interperetations of the intricacies of the new game engine. As with any art form it has mirrored the real world- coaching schools of thought such as that of total football, catenaccio et al have their likenesses in the world of FM – in SI’s world there are philosophies such as the rule of two, and radius theory. In short, there are many theories of the game, and equally as many opinions as to how it should, and can be played. I cannot stress the relevance of this notion to FM2006 any higher: no one tactical style will be ultimately effective with every team. All philosophies are valid- it is knowing which one to implement, and when to do so. The beauty of this game is that you can develop and implement a richly detailed tactical philosophy, or simply put together a basic 4-4-2 and succeed either way.
Wake up call. I work a nine-to-five. I don’t have time to discuss the relative merits of creative freedom when applied to an attacking midfielder with poor decision-making attributes. I want to get home and wind down in front of a few matches, try out that new Peruvian wing-back I snapped up and try to convince that seventeen year-old libero to agree senior terms. Long-gone are the school days of eyesight withering and socially dysfunctional all-night sessions. This is how I play the game. I like to form my tactical shape and team instructions in pre-season, and do not want to have to tweak it to suit every occasion. I want to set my first eleven, build the formation around them and get my teeth into that promotion challenge. With this in mind, I have a simple but effective system that I apply to all formations I construct. I hope to test it out with everyone on here, and have given it the working title of the slider apathy approach. If any success is gleaned from this little experiment then hopefully we will have a basic framework that new players can follow, and eventually develop and improve themselves.
Objectives
-To create default tactics for all the major formation shapes (4-4-2, 4-3-3, 3-5-2 etc)
-To implement defensive line and slider apathy principles to these shapes
-Hopefully establish a simple, overall philosophy that can be adapted to any team, at any time, with successful results.
The Premise…
The slider apathy approach stems from a theory a few of us discussed a while ago, and that the old tactical luminaries had mulled over since the advent of FM2005’s unveiling of the “defensive line” slider. It comprises the setting of a pre-defined defensive unit, and basing the offensive players’ instructions around the team instruction settings. With this in place, the adjustments the manager need make are purely team slider based, as opposed to any in-depth changing of the team’s shape or individual instructions.
In other words, it’s quick and easy. You can make one or two quick changes per game, and you have a solid and effective unit as the basis of success. Here’s hoping…
Your Team.
Okay- you’ve picked your team. As this system is based around flexibility, it would therefore make sense to base the tactic around the players at your disposal. So, you need to pick your first eleven, which would presumably be your best eleven players. How will they fit into a basic system? Would a 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 best suit the players you have? This is your decision, and a crucial one at that. Later in this overview I’ll give examples of a team, their formation and application of the Slider Apathy principles to them. Do this, and the job is half done.
Right. The whole thing is based on a solid defensive unit. If we’re theoretically keeping it simple then we can start with the following settings for the defenders:
The Defence.
Mentality
All defenders set to 6 (6 clicks from the far left of the slider- description should be “normal”).
Creative Freedom
Defenders set to 5 - “little”. They’re defenders, they need to keep it simple.
Closing Down
Same as mentality (don’t call it slider apathy for nothing!)- 6 . This so the defenders don’t get drawn out of position and leave gaps in the backline.
Individual instructions for defenders depend entirely on the players at your disposal. If you want attacking full-backs then you can implement this easily by giving them a forward arrow, or setting “forward runs” to “often.” To reflect this, all template tactics have individual instructions set to “mixed.”
Midfielders.
This section refers to two differing positions of players. For the sake of reference, I’ll call them defensive midfielders (DMCs) and holding midfielders. Both fulfil the same role in the team: they screen the defence and prevent opposing runners from midfield. Classic example of a DMC would be Claude Makelele, whereas the archetypal holding midfielder would be someone like Gilberto- one of two central midfielders (in the MC position) but responsible for sitting back, covering the defence and receiving the ball from the back four.
Of course, it’s optional to have these in your side, but it’s almost universally accepted that every defence no matter how good needs adequate cover to succeed. I have incorporated this into this theory. First, the more conventional holding midfielder (who in FM2006 terms, would be playing in the MC position).
The Holding Midfielder (MC)
Mentality, Creative Freedom.
Set these up in an identical manner to the defenders. Yup, you guessed it, 6 mentality (“normal”), and 5 for creative freedom (“rarely”).
Closing Down.
Leave this set to team. As he is not part of the actual defence, the defence-minded midfielder is free to press and close down with the rest of the team, as he will not leave gaping holes in the last line.
The Defensive Midfielder (DMC)
As these already occupy a defensive position, it was decided that they should be set up accordingly:
Mentality/Closing Down
Set to team. Setting them up with a low mentality (as with the holding midfielder) tends to lead them to act more like an extra central defender- never venturing forward as the team advances. If this is what you want then fair enough, but the general concensus after testing was that the DMC is better off moving forward ahead of the defence slightly to intercept or close down.
Creative Freedom.
Set to 5 (“rarely”), as with the defence. Keep it simple. Sit, mop up and distribute.
On the Offensive!
The monkey work is now done. You’ve set up your defence. You’ve built from the back- so now you have your canvas for those flambuoyant strikers to embellish with their flair and creativity. With your four, five or six (depending on your formation and players) defensive players set up, it’s time to assess the firepower.
Flexibility
Fitting in with the original apathetic premise of this thread- the advantage of this system is its easily implementable flexibility. Your attacking players will, in the most part, be controlled by the team sliders. So, you can switch from attacking to defensive, by adjusting the team sliders, all the time maintaining that solid defensive unit.
Defensive Line
This is the key area of this theory. Defensive Line must mirror team mentality at all times. So, if you begin with an attacking mentality of 15 on the slider (15 notches from the left), then you would start with the defensive line on roughly the same notch. There are 22 notches on the team mentality as opposed to 20 on the defensive line slider, but they should always be as close as is physically possible.
This is so your defensive and attacking units are synchronised on the pitch, and don’t leave enormous gaps between defence, midfield or attack.
Decide on the mentality you wish your team to begin playing at, and match your defensive line to it. During the game, you can now make your team play more defensively by lowering their mentality (and of course matching the defensive line to the new mentality).
Teamwork
By keeping both sets of defensive and attacking players on the same mentalities, I find that it keeps the team together, and more effective as a unit. This theory is very simplistic indeed, but it was my intention to provide a simple alternative to the approach of other tactical deep-thinkers that take the game to a level that I don’t really have the time to play it at. As much as I admire their multi-system methodologies, I don’t get the time to go that in-depth (although if I carry on typing up my forum contributions at work, I may have soon enough). With this system, I find that you can set it up pre-season, make a couple of individual instruction adjustments, sit back and play through games, without too many glaring tactical deficiencies that need amending. This works for me, as I only now get the time to play for an hour or less every day after work.
The other crucial element of success with this simplistic style is down to squad assessment. I touched on it earlier, but need to stress its importance. If you put together a 4-4-2 with a conference team in this way and attempt to play short passing and a high tempo then it probably won’t work. You have to be realistic with your footballing ambitions for your side. This of course, is down to you, the manager.
Testing and Ambiguity
There are still many grey areas in the tactical side of FM2006. There doesn’t seem to be one direct formula to establish which team instructions work alongside one another, and why.
The latest philosophy I have on this is based around two aspects of the game- the positional side and the technical one.
Positional
We can be sure that of the team instructions, the sliders that affect your players’ literal position on the pitch are mentality, creative freedom, width, closing down and defensive line. The relationship between mentality and defensive line has already been well documented. Width seems to gauge how horizontal your players will move to find space, and closing down seems to work in that it dictates how far from the payers’ starting position he will move to close down the opposition. Creative freedom seems to work in an identical manner- except it applies to players moving into space to receive the ball.
Hypothesis
So theoretically, the attacking optimum would be thus:
-High mentality
-High creative freedom
-High width
-High closing down
-High defensive line
This would mean your players playing high up the pitch (mentality), roving the attacking third for space (creative freedom), pulling out wide to receive the ball (width) and penning back the opposition in their own half. This would work with a high defensive line, as giving the opposition time on the ball would lead to them hitting balls over the top of your back four, which is not good. A high defensive line would of course be necessary as your attack and midfield would be high up the pitch, and would lead to massive gaps between defence and midfield if “deep.”
Conversely, the defensive option would be thus:
-Low mentality
-Low creative freedom
-Low width
-Low closing down
-Deep defensive line
This would make your team sit back. The low creative freedom means they’ll stick to their game and not over-elaborate in any way- they’ll hold their positions. Low width means that you’ll congest the midfield. Low closing down means you’ll have men behind the ball (in conjunction with all the other settings), and have a solid unit that won’t be drawn out of position.
So, in theory- wouldn’t it be great if you could decide on how attacking/defensive your team is capable of playing, and just set all these sliders to the same variable? That’s what I’m proposing.
Technical
If the team instruction sliders we’ve already discussed are positional, then what can we deem the others? The other idea I’ve been mulling over is that perhaps the other sliders should be set according to the technical capabilities of the team. I’m talking about the Passing Style, Tempo and Time Wasting sliders.
According to the manual and various other sources (hello Cleon!), setting team passing to the far left of the slider would encourage your team to play free-flowing, one-touch football.
Disclaimer.
This is simply an idea. It needs testing, which is where you lovely folks come in. I’m currently testing it with Exeter City in the Conference, and it seems promising thus far. Please let me know if this works for you, or flame me if it doesn’t!
Example: As Exeter are a technically poor side (sorry Mr Inglethorpe!), I’m not that confident of playing a very attack-minded game. Putting into practice the above theories, I’ve set my team instructions as such:
Technical (poor, so I’ve set these high):
-Passing Style: 15 (“Direct”)
-Tempo: 15 (“Quick”)
-Time Wasting: 15 (“Often”)
Positional (not very confident in with attacking prowess):
-Mentality: 10 (“Normal”)
-Creative Freedom: 10 (“Normal”)
-Width: 10 (“Normal”)
-Closing Down: 10 (“Mixed”)
-Defensive Line: 10 (“Mixed”)
If I was searching for an equaliser for example, I’d knock all these up to 15 for example, to push higher up the pitch and look for more space and press the opposition back into their own half.
As a contrast, if one were to follow this theory and apply it to Real Madrid for example, you would do the following:
Technical (awesome!):
-Passing: 3-5 (“Short”)
-Tempo: 3-5 (“Slow”, with the emphasis on keeping possession and probing the opposition)
-Time Wasting: 3-5
Positional (attack!)
-Mentality: 15 (“Attacking”)
-Creative Freedom: 15 (“Much”)
-Width: 15 (“Wide”)
-Closing Down: 15 (“Often”)
-Defensive Line: 15 (“Push Up”)
As I’ve said before, this is only a theory and needs comprehensive testing, but please feel free to use these principles in accordance with the Slider Apathy templates to help you set up your team, and please let me know how you get on.
Any feedback, abuse or the inevitable million aspects I’ve forgotten or missed out, please post them in the forum thread. Remember, as with anything in FM2006, this is work in progress, and all contributions help.
Cheers,
Asmo.
PS- I will posts links to templates if anybody is interested.
Slider Apathy: Template Tactics and General Overview
After much ado, discussion, dispute and perplexion, here are the final templates for the Slider Apathy approach. A quick recap is necessary I feel, to explain the approach and thinking behind the theory, so here it is.
I’m fascinated by the tactical aspects and nuances of this game. People like wwfan and his peers provide no end of fascinating, thorough and concise interperetations of the intricacies of the new game engine. As with any art form it has mirrored the real world- coaching schools of thought such as that of total football, catenaccio et al have their likenesses in the world of FM – in SI’s world there are philosophies such as the rule of two, and radius theory. In short, there are many theories of the game, and equally as many opinions as to how it should, and can be played. I cannot stress the relevance of this notion to FM2006 any higher: no one tactical style will be ultimately effective with every team. All philosophies are valid- it is knowing which one to implement, and when to do so. The beauty of this game is that you can develop and implement a richly detailed tactical philosophy, or simply put together a basic 4-4-2 and succeed either way.
Wake up call. I work a nine-to-five. I don’t have time to discuss the relative merits of creative freedom when applied to an attacking midfielder with poor decision-making attributes. I want to get home and wind down in front of a few matches, try out that new Peruvian wing-back I snapped up and try to convince that seventeen year-old libero to agree senior terms. Long-gone are the school days of eyesight withering and socially dysfunctional all-night sessions. This is how I play the game. I like to form my tactical shape and team instructions in pre-season, and do not want to have to tweak it to suit every occasion. I want to set my first eleven, build the formation around them and get my teeth into that promotion challenge. With this in mind, I have a simple but effective system that I apply to all formations I construct. I hope to test it out with everyone on here, and have given it the working title of the slider apathy approach. If any success is gleaned from this little experiment then hopefully we will have a basic framework that new players can follow, and eventually develop and improve themselves.
Objectives
-To create default tactics for all the major formation shapes (4-4-2, 4-3-3, 3-5-2 etc)
-To implement defensive line and slider apathy principles to these shapes
-Hopefully establish a simple, overall philosophy that can be adapted to any team, at any time, with successful results.
The Premise…
The slider apathy approach stems from a theory a few of us discussed a while ago, and that the old tactical luminaries had mulled over since the advent of FM2005’s unveiling of the “defensive line” slider. It comprises the setting of a pre-defined defensive unit, and basing the offensive players’ instructions around the team instruction settings. With this in place, the adjustments the manager need make are purely team slider based, as opposed to any in-depth changing of the team’s shape or individual instructions.
In other words, it’s quick and easy. You can make one or two quick changes per game, and you have a solid and effective unit as the basis of success. Here’s hoping…
Your Team.
Okay- you’ve picked your team. As this system is based around flexibility, it would therefore make sense to base the tactic around the players at your disposal. So, you need to pick your first eleven, which would presumably be your best eleven players. How will they fit into a basic system? Would a 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 best suit the players you have? This is your decision, and a crucial one at that. Later in this overview I’ll give examples of a team, their formation and application of the Slider Apathy principles to them. Do this, and the job is half done.
Right. The whole thing is based on a solid defensive unit. If we’re theoretically keeping it simple then we can start with the following settings for the defenders:
The Defence.
Mentality
All defenders set to 6 (6 clicks from the far left of the slider- description should be “normal”).
Creative Freedom
Defenders set to 5 - “little”. They’re defenders, they need to keep it simple.
Closing Down
Same as mentality (don’t call it slider apathy for nothing!)- 6 . This so the defenders don’t get drawn out of position and leave gaps in the backline.
Individual instructions for defenders depend entirely on the players at your disposal. If you want attacking full-backs then you can implement this easily by giving them a forward arrow, or setting “forward runs” to “often.” To reflect this, all template tactics have individual instructions set to “mixed.”
Midfielders.
This section refers to two differing positions of players. For the sake of reference, I’ll call them defensive midfielders (DMCs) and holding midfielders. Both fulfil the same role in the team: they screen the defence and prevent opposing runners from midfield. Classic example of a DMC would be Claude Makelele, whereas the archetypal holding midfielder would be someone like Gilberto- one of two central midfielders (in the MC position) but responsible for sitting back, covering the defence and receiving the ball from the back four.
Of course, it’s optional to have these in your side, but it’s almost universally accepted that every defence no matter how good needs adequate cover to succeed. I have incorporated this into this theory. First, the more conventional holding midfielder (who in FM2006 terms, would be playing in the MC position).
The Holding Midfielder (MC)
Mentality, Creative Freedom.
Set these up in an identical manner to the defenders. Yup, you guessed it, 6 mentality (“normal”), and 5 for creative freedom (“rarely”).
Closing Down.
Leave this set to team. As he is not part of the actual defence, the defence-minded midfielder is free to press and close down with the rest of the team, as he will not leave gaping holes in the last line.
The Defensive Midfielder (DMC)
As these already occupy a defensive position, it was decided that they should be set up accordingly:
Mentality/Closing Down
Set to team. Setting them up with a low mentality (as with the holding midfielder) tends to lead them to act more like an extra central defender- never venturing forward as the team advances. If this is what you want then fair enough, but the general concensus after testing was that the DMC is better off moving forward ahead of the defence slightly to intercept or close down.
Creative Freedom.
Set to 5 (“rarely”), as with the defence. Keep it simple. Sit, mop up and distribute.
On the Offensive!
The monkey work is now done. You’ve set up your defence. You’ve built from the back- so now you have your canvas for those flambuoyant strikers to embellish with their flair and creativity. With your four, five or six (depending on your formation and players) defensive players set up, it’s time to assess the firepower.
Flexibility
Fitting in with the original apathetic premise of this thread- the advantage of this system is its easily implementable flexibility. Your attacking players will, in the most part, be controlled by the team sliders. So, you can switch from attacking to defensive, by adjusting the team sliders, all the time maintaining that solid defensive unit.
Defensive Line
This is the key area of this theory. Defensive Line must mirror team mentality at all times. So, if you begin with an attacking mentality of 15 on the slider (15 notches from the left), then you would start with the defensive line on roughly the same notch. There are 22 notches on the team mentality as opposed to 20 on the defensive line slider, but they should always be as close as is physically possible.
This is so your defensive and attacking units are synchronised on the pitch, and don’t leave enormous gaps between defence, midfield or attack.
Decide on the mentality you wish your team to begin playing at, and match your defensive line to it. During the game, you can now make your team play more defensively by lowering their mentality (and of course matching the defensive line to the new mentality).
Teamwork
By keeping both sets of defensive and attacking players on the same mentalities, I find that it keeps the team together, and more effective as a unit. This theory is very simplistic indeed, but it was my intention to provide a simple alternative to the approach of other tactical deep-thinkers that take the game to a level that I don’t really have the time to play it at. As much as I admire their multi-system methodologies, I don’t get the time to go that in-depth (although if I carry on typing up my forum contributions at work, I may have soon enough). With this system, I find that you can set it up pre-season, make a couple of individual instruction adjustments, sit back and play through games, without too many glaring tactical deficiencies that need amending. This works for me, as I only now get the time to play for an hour or less every day after work.
The other crucial element of success with this simplistic style is down to squad assessment. I touched on it earlier, but need to stress its importance. If you put together a 4-4-2 with a conference team in this way and attempt to play short passing and a high tempo then it probably won’t work. You have to be realistic with your footballing ambitions for your side. This of course, is down to you, the manager.
Testing and Ambiguity
There are still many grey areas in the tactical side of FM2006. There doesn’t seem to be one direct formula to establish which team instructions work alongside one another, and why.
The latest philosophy I have on this is based around two aspects of the game- the positional side and the technical one.
Positional
We can be sure that of the team instructions, the sliders that affect your players’ literal position on the pitch are mentality, creative freedom, width, closing down and defensive line. The relationship between mentality and defensive line has already been well documented. Width seems to gauge how horizontal your players will move to find space, and closing down seems to work in that it dictates how far from the payers’ starting position he will move to close down the opposition. Creative freedom seems to work in an identical manner- except it applies to players moving into space to receive the ball.
Hypothesis
So theoretically, the attacking optimum would be thus:
-High mentality
-High creative freedom
-High width
-High closing down
-High defensive line
This would mean your players playing high up the pitch (mentality), roving the attacking third for space (creative freedom), pulling out wide to receive the ball (width) and penning back the opposition in their own half. This would work with a high defensive line, as giving the opposition time on the ball would lead to them hitting balls over the top of your back four, which is not good. A high defensive line would of course be necessary as your attack and midfield would be high up the pitch, and would lead to massive gaps between defence and midfield if “deep.”
Conversely, the defensive option would be thus:
-Low mentality
-Low creative freedom
-Low width
-Low closing down
-Deep defensive line
This would make your team sit back. The low creative freedom means they’ll stick to their game and not over-elaborate in any way- they’ll hold their positions. Low width means that you’ll congest the midfield. Low closing down means you’ll have men behind the ball (in conjunction with all the other settings), and have a solid unit that won’t be drawn out of position.
So, in theory- wouldn’t it be great if you could decide on how attacking/defensive your team is capable of playing, and just set all these sliders to the same variable? That’s what I’m proposing.
Technical
If the team instruction sliders we’ve already discussed are positional, then what can we deem the others? The other idea I’ve been mulling over is that perhaps the other sliders should be set according to the technical capabilities of the team. I’m talking about the Passing Style, Tempo and Time Wasting sliders.
According to the manual and various other sources (hello Cleon!), setting team passing to the far left of the slider would encourage your team to play free-flowing, one-touch football.
Disclaimer.
This is simply an idea. It needs testing, which is where you lovely folks come in. I’m currently testing it with Exeter City in the Conference, and it seems promising thus far. Please let me know if this works for you, or flame me if it doesn’t!
Example: As Exeter are a technically poor side (sorry Mr Inglethorpe!), I’m not that confident of playing a very attack-minded game. Putting into practice the above theories, I’ve set my team instructions as such:
Technical (poor, so I’ve set these high):
-Passing Style: 15 (“Direct”)
-Tempo: 15 (“Quick”)
-Time Wasting: 15 (“Often”)
Positional (not very confident in with attacking prowess):
-Mentality: 10 (“Normal”)
-Creative Freedom: 10 (“Normal”)
-Width: 10 (“Normal”)
-Closing Down: 10 (“Mixed”)
-Defensive Line: 10 (“Mixed”)
If I was searching for an equaliser for example, I’d knock all these up to 15 for example, to push higher up the pitch and look for more space and press the opposition back into their own half.
As a contrast, if one were to follow this theory and apply it to Real Madrid for example, you would do the following:
Technical (awesome!):
-Passing: 3-5 (“Short”)
-Tempo: 3-5 (“Slow”, with the emphasis on keeping possession and probing the opposition)
-Time Wasting: 3-5
Positional (attack!)
-Mentality: 15 (“Attacking”)
-Creative Freedom: 15 (“Much”)
-Width: 15 (“Wide”)
-Closing Down: 15 (“Often”)
-Defensive Line: 15 (“Push Up”)
As I’ve said before, this is only a theory and needs comprehensive testing, but please feel free to use these principles in accordance with the Slider Apathy templates to help you set up your team, and please let me know how you get on.
Any feedback, abuse or the inevitable million aspects I’ve forgotten or missed out, please post them in the forum thread. Remember, as with anything in FM2006, this is work in progress, and all contributions help.
Cheers,
Asmo.
PS- I will posts links to templates if anybody is interested.
I love scorelines like 5-4 against Chelski (this actually happened twice)
