Post by Mikey (Admin) on Dec 2, 2022 22:26:24 GMT
Welcome to the English Football League where you take on the role of Club Owner & Manager with the target of building your club into an elite club through Stadium, Facilities, playing squad and club finances to dominate the lower leagues of football and eventually move into the Premier League.
LEAGUES
The 1st Division of only English clubs has 10 clubs playing each other home and away for a 18 match league season. The bottom 3 clubs will be relegated down to the 2nd Division.
Below the 1st Division there is the 2nd Division consisting of 10 clubs playing each other home and away for an 18 match league season. The top three will be promoted to the 1st Division providing they meet criteria, the bottom two clubs will be relegated and replaced with two new clubs to keep leagues fresh with clubs.
CUP COMPETITION
The English League Cup competition, a knockout competition with the 20 league clubs entering for the 1st Round, 2nd Round then Quarter Finals and Semi Finals and the final played at Wembley Stadium.
CLUB
Your club starts the game with just a basic club pitch and mix of seating/terraces for 1000 fans, each club will then build and develop their stadium, facilities and sources of income from various buildings.
CLUB PAGE
All relevant information for your club can be found on your club page, such as current manager and previous managers, honors, the club's current facilities and stadium.
Your current Sponsors will also be found on the club page, Supporters Influence on the Board is a new feature and has rating which indicates the pressure your club's supporters will put on the Board if results are not going well, poor running of the club financially, lack of developing the club and this could be a factor in a manager being sacked.
CLUB OWNERSHIP/FINANCES:
Your in place as Club Owner/Manager so one of your key tasks will be building your clubs assets, this will be done through sponsorship, gate receipts, players sales, season ticket sales and achieving Market Objectives etc.....
All clubs start with bank balance of £3,000,000, clubs also receive a league sponsorship payment of £475,000 per club.
Clubs will also be approached with possible commercial sponsorship deals, and Season Ticket sales.
Each club also has 500,000 club shares and a share price which may go up and down based on the club's current performance, stadium and facilities. These shares can be sold at any one time to raise extra funds for the club, but warning that selling more than 50% could give control of your club to another entity who may sack you if they are not pleased with your performance.
You can earn financial payments by £100k per win in the league and £50k per win in the English League Cup, your media content will earn you £50,000 per club article post to a maximum of 4 per week, and receive £25,000 for each pre match comments statement and post match comments statement.
TRANSFER MARKET
Clubs can buy and sell players with no limit on the amount of players you can buy or sell each week, clubs can not go into more than £500,000 in the red, should your club go into debt it will need to be back in a positive balance before end of season.
Failure to do this will result in your club going into administration and points deduction for the next season.
Buying/Selling Players
The mainstay for any manager is building a successful team by buying and selling players, transfers must be agreed by both clubs and then posted in the Completed Transfer thread as per TFM transfers.
Market Value Guideline:-
13 rated player = £350,000 to £750,000
14 rated player = £750,000 to £1 million
15 rated player = £1 million to £1.25 milllion
16 rated player = £1.25 million to £1.5 million
17 rated player = £1.5 million to £2 million
18 rated player = £2 million to £3 million
Loan Players
Clubs can loan a maximum of 3 players to their club and only one player from a main TFM club.
If you wish to change loan players you will need to cancel a loanee to free up space to loan another player.
Player Auction
At start of pre season their will be a player auction where clubs can bid to sign Auction listed players, there will also be a mid season player auction. Normal TFM rules apply ie: Club must have enough funds to sign the players they are bidding on, no limit on number of players that can be bought.
PLAYING SQUAD
The English Football League utilises player sides so this give managers more tactical options and formations they can employ to bring success to their club...
Player positions now have Right, Left, Central so you can now get more balanced formation.
ie: 4-4-2 may look like GK, DFR, DFC, DFC, DFL, MFR, MFC, MFC, MFL, FWR, FWC.
Key feature will be getting balance of your team and players playing out of position will have more negative influence on your team in matches, so careful thought is need on selection of formation, player sides and tactics.
Player Positions and Sides
Unlike in other games, a player in ESMS doesn't have a pre-defined position. A player has a set of skills which makes him more suitable on some positions than on others - it is up to his manager to decide on which position to play him. The positions in ESMS are:
GK - goalkeeper. The solitary guardian-angel of your team's goal. Players with high St (Shot stopping) skills are good GKs.
DF - defender. DFs are the major line of defense of your team. They usually tackle most of the opponent's attacks. Players play best as DFs when their Tk (Tackling) skill is high.
DM - defensive midfielder. DMs balance between defense and midfield. They help protect your goal, but they also take their chances in advancing and feeding the attackers with vital passes. Players play best as DMs when they have good Tk and Ps (Passing) skills.
MF - midfielder. MFs are the main link between your defense and offense. Players with a high Ps skill are good midfielders.
AM - attacking midfielder. AMs are up there in the offense, trying to score goals and support the forwards. Players play best as AMs when they have good Ps and Sh (Shooting) skills.
FW - forward. The major fire-power of your team. FW are fed with passes from your midfield and score goals. Players function best as FWs when their Sh skill is high.
Players also play on different sides of the field. The sides, as you have already seen are Right, Left and Center.
Any player in ESMS can play on any side (just like he can play on any position) but players will perform much better when playing on their preferred side. When you specify how a player will play in your teamsheet (see the explanation of teamsheets for more info), you must combine the positions with the side (except for the goalkeeper). For example, DML means that the player plays as a left defensive midfielder; FWC means a central forward, etc. GK is the only player for which the side isn't explicitly specified.
Team formation
A team formation is simply a summary of what positions its players play on. It should be familiar from the real soccer world and computer games. For example 4-4-2 is commonly used to specify that the team plays with 4 defenders, 4 midfielders and 2 attackers.
In ESMS the formation is implicitly inferred from the positions assigned to all players. You don't specify a formation in the teamsheet - you specify the positions your players play in. Formation can be useful on the league-level, however, to impose certain restrictions on teamsheets. For example, some leagues forbid to play with more than 5 defenders, or with more than 3 attackers. ESMS doesn't mind how you play your players - as long as they're 11 and there's one goalkeeper. You can in theory put a team of a GK + 10 left midfielders (MFL), ESMS won't mind, but don't be surprised if your team won't shine - a healthy balance of defense and offense is required to play well. ESMS was built to mimic reality - what works in reality will work in ESMS as well. Common real-world formations like 4-4-2, 5-2-3, 3-1-4-2 etc proved to be effective.
Special care has to be given to sides of players. Playing with 4 players in the defense may be solid, but not quite so if they are all assigned to the Right. Balanced formations perform better than unbalanced - for example when you play with 4 players in defense, the balanced formations are LCCR (Left, two Centers and one Right) and LLRR (two Lefts, two Rights), and so on. The multitude of formations and side assignments makes it rather tricky to build a really strong team - you will need a good mix of players with various skills for each position. An injury of a key player can be quite a challenge to the manager, that may be forced to change his game-style while this player can't play.
Team Tactics
Another issue a manager has to consider is the tactic his team will use in the game. ESMS supports a variety of tactics - in fact, tactics are fully customizable and can be set by each league for its own needs. I'll describe the default tactics that come with ESMS - they have been tested by time and provide an interesting variety.
Normal (N) - The most basic tactics in ESMS (don't be folled by ``basic'' - in some cases N is the most effective way to play). It provides no special benefits, but also has almost no vulnerabilities. A team playing N will enjoy a stable mix of defense and offense.
Defensive (D) - A team playing D focuses a lot on defense. If you want to keep the score down, giving a strong fight in the defense, but also not taking much opportunities in the offense, D is the tactic for you. With this tactic your midfielders, and even attackers to some extent focus more on the defense, hence your opponent will have a hard time scoring, but so will you.
Attacking (A) - The most offensive tactic. Your team is eager to score - the attackers stick near to the opponent's goal, the midfielders take a lot of chances and even the defenders join to help. This all gives good offense, but your defense will suffer greatly.
Passing (P) - Your team will push for offense, driving slow but efficient attacks. Naturally, when a team focuses on attack, the defense is weaker. This tactic is more offensive than N but less than A.
Counter Attack (C) - The defenders concentrate on defense, but seek opportunities to drive the midfielders and attackers to stinging counter-attacks. This tactic is more offensive than D but less than N.
Long Ball (L) - The most unusual tactic, which can sometimes be a winner and sometimes fail, depending on the opponent. With L, your attack is driven by long balls right from the defense, and midfielders play a minor role. This tactic is usually used by teams with relatively weak midfielders.
Possession (S) - This tactic has been set up so the team concentrates on possession by passing and tackling and in effect pressing a team. Attacking chances are reduced in favour of pressing opposing teams.
Conditionals
To make things clearer, here are some sample orders with explanations:
TACTIC A IF MIN >= 45, SCORE =< -1
Tells the program to change the tactic to attacking if it is later than the 45th minute and your team is losing by one or more goals.
TACTIC A IF MIN => 45, SCORE =< -1, SCORE > -4
Tells the program to change the tactic to attacking if it is later than the 45th minute and your team is losing by one or more, but less than 4 goals.
CHANGEPOS J_Doe MFC IF MIN <= 20, SCORE >= 1
Changes the position of J_Doe to MFC if it's earlier than the 20th minute and your team leads by one goal or more.
SUB MFC 12 DFC IF MIN = 60, SCORE => 1
Substitutes the worst MFC of your team for player 12 (that will play DFC) if you are leading by one goal or more on the 60th minute.
CHANGEPOS FWC MFC IF RED MFC, MIN >= 50
Changes the position of the worst FWC of your team to MFC if some MFC got a red card after the 50th minute.
Change tired for fresh players on the 70th minute
SUB B_Ekse T_Vittorio DFC IF MIN = 70
SUB M_Fowler C_Radulovic MFR IF MIN = 70
Change the worst DFC to play as MFC if we're not winning after the 50th minute
CHANGEPOS DFC MFC IF MIN >= 50, SCORE <= 0
The following 3 orders happen if the team is losing somewhere after the 65th minute.
It's an obviously offensive scenario: the tactic will change to Attacking, we'll move a player up front from AMC to FWC and bring in another AMC instead of a MFC
TACTIC A IF MIN >= 65, SCORE < 0
CHANGEPOS F_Longfellow FWC IF MIN >= 65, SCORE < 0
SUB Morinho R_Berski AMC IF MIN >= 65, SCORE < 0
Good luck in the English Football League pyramid.