TMM

I wouldn't have that. If I ever managed an international side on this game I'll be preparing for qualification games and such so will be playing whoever I want .

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He he, I know what ya mean. When I'm England manager, I couldn't give a flying fuck what the club managers say. When I'm a club manager, if the the national team don't follow my rules I shoot them.

Oh, this screenshot is all the interaction that happened in regards to my Alan Smith situation where he refused to play 'second-fiddle' for England.

I've never given any of my players restrictions from playing internationally.

Country > Club.

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Fuck that. Club > Country...in reality and on FM>

When you've got players moaning about being tired, then they play 90 minutes in a meaningless friendly, then it gets really annoying.

Must a question, when you set 45 minutes to a player, does that count for goal keepers, cause fucking Shay Given never gets substituted.

Also, if a international manager plays them for longer, can ya have a go at him?

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Well, I'd assume so because like I said, Mourinho had a go at me in the papers for playing John Terry for to long. That said, I've never had the option to do it, but I never usually pay attention to how long they play for when I'm a club manager.

My England game is going pretty decently. I've won 4, drawn 2 and lost 2. In my defence, the 2 defeats were friendlies which I played a second string team for.

In my last friendly, which was against Italy, I pissed of Jose Mourinho because I played John Terry for the full 90 minutes instead of his 'ordered' 45, so he had a go at me, saying that friendlies were a waste of time. I told him that I chose how long players play for. Ah, pissing of Jose Mourinho is always fun.

I intend on playing this game up until 2008 (at the earliest) then trying to take over club management and starting a diary I think. Should be interesting.

well I bought Rollercoaster tycoon triple pack today it include  RCT 2 and the two expansions . and I'm really loving it. still getting used to it but i love how you cna build houses and such.  i was looking at several other sites and noticed people doing collaborative parks , anyone interested in doing one with me ? pm if you are and we can  flesh out the details

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I think I got the same pack. I installted it, watched the tutorials, started to play the Sherwood Forest one...then quit it, and haven't played it since. That was about 2 weeks ago. Yup, got bored REAL quick...

6 Tainted Love - Soft Cell, 1981

orig. Gloria Jones, 1964

By god...I didn't even know that was a cover. But fuck me if it isn't awful. Now if you replace Soft Cell with Marilyn Manson, then I wouldn't complain.

Newcastle's defence are bloody awful. Of course, saying this is nothing new, but every time Man Utd have come forward today I thought they were gonna score. I gave up watching after 82 minutes, worried the score would up being something like 7-1.

although i'm a loyal Villa fan, i think that we over acheived last season which was seconed by David O'Leary

We will proberly finish were we are now between 8th and 12th

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All other teams seem to be getting their own threads so why not Walsall?

Are there any other Super Saddlers on these Forums

You really do have claret and blue running through your veins, don't you? I mean, with that post, that avatar and your general optimsim, you could be up for Support of the year.

He also seems to be insane if he think's there's more than one Walsall fan...on the planet.

Looking at the table, I think 9th sounds about right to me. I don't think you'll finish any higher anyway.

The Rules, Guidelines, and Spirit of LLM – Playing the Game and using the Forum

The playing of the game falls into two categories:

1) Choosing the Team.

2) Playing the game.

Choosing the Team’s easy enough. Look for any Nation with more than one Division. Look at the Clubs in the Lowest Division. Choose one of these Clubs.

By definition, Lower League management can only involve Teams with more than one Division, but it’s been a sort of unwritten rule in the LLM community that playing a Club from a Nation with only one Division will be tolerated in the LLM Forum.

Certain Teams are best stayed away from because of unusually high reputations or financial state. These included Peterborough in CM3, Rushden and Diamonds, Fiorentina Viola, and the like. They’re not generally played by regular LLaMas, but may be looked upon as a good introduction to the LLM way, given that they give a slightly easier ride than the real LLM Teams, like Leigh RMI.

A good way to choose a Club is to utilise the LLM Random Team Generator, link located at the top of the LLM Forum Index Page.

G.A's Three Rules of playing LLM.

1) Choose a team. Play the same team until you've won everything you can, regardless how long it takes, or until you're sacked. Then start a new game.

2) Choose a team. Play until your reputation attracts the interest of ever increasingly bigger teams; change Clubs as and when you're offered jobs until you're in charge at Real Madrid, Juventus, Man Utd or a World Cup winning Manager with San Marino.

3) Choose a team. Do crap. Get sacked. Wait for another team. Do crap. Get sacked. Wait for….ad infinitum.

Playing the game.

First thing to remember is…LLM is a way of playing the game, it’s not just playing with a Team from the Lower Leagues.

It is just a game, though. It’s counter-productive to get bogged down by rules, although there are a few guidelines which should be heeded in order to play the game in the LLM Spirit.

There’s a rule, though, which is best described as “set in stone”.

Play the game as SI programmed it. That is, install the CM Game, apply the latest official SI Patch, Choose a Team and play the game. That means do NOT use editors or third party updates (i.e. Updates on squads, competitions, etc, made up by persons other than SI).

The reason for this is that playing LLM is about playing the game as realistically as possible. This means trusting the data provided by SI is as good as you can get. Third Party Updates are done by persons who may be tempted to give an advantage/disadvantage to favourite/hated Clubs or Players – note MAY. It doesn’t benefit SI to provide faulty data, so steer clear of other updates.

Editors (The Spawn of Satan) are banned for two reasons. They can corrupt your game and they allow you to cheat, whether it’s producing super-players or swapping Teams from one Division or Nation to another.

Guidelines:

Scout Where You Can Tour, or SWYCT.

This is a guideline that was devised as a method of determining where you should be able to send your Scouts when managing a Lower League Club. Financial constraints would make it highly unlikely that a Manager could send a Scout from England to Africa, South America or other faraway places, so the best way to decide where you could send them was to look at where the game would allow you to tour, in the United Kingdom Leagues this would be any of the Home Countries and Ireland, and only send your Scouts there.

It was later decided that it would probably be fair to scout your borders (SYB), i.e. send scouts from a German Club to surrounding Nations like Denmark, Austria, France, Poland, etc. when not managing in the UK.

The Search Screen.

Some LLaMa’s use the search screen to shortlist players in their area and then send off their scouts to find out how good a player he really is. Other more zealous LLaMas avoid this screen entirely letting their scout do the job for which he was hired ie: finding players. Signing “known” players is a big no no. Known players are ones that are known to you through outside influences, or have been signed and performed well for you in previous games of CM. Regardless of what you tendency is with the Search Screen, no player should ever be signed unless he is first given the once over by one of your scouts.

The Transfer Screen.

Stricter LLaMas would never attempt to sign players purely based on the fact they appear as freed in the screen that lists all transfers Worldwide as such a list does not exist in real life. It’s possible to find out such information in the Press, online, etc., but a real life manager doesn’t have access to a transfer screen.

Less scrupulous LLaMas use the screen by identifying freed players and sending their scouts to watch them, signing them or otherwise based on the scouts’ recommendations.

The “Find” button.

Not used by LLaMas. In order to use the “Find” button you have to know who you’re searching for. This can only be done by having prior knowledge of the player, either by having past experience of him in a previous game or by listening to a recommendation by a player tipper.

Signing Staff

LLaMas usually only sign Staff that speak the language of the players they’ll be involved with. In Britain it’d be guys who spoke English. In Germany, German, and so on. The exception to this is scouts. Scouts don’t have day to day contact with players on a verbal communication level and can rely on their observation skills to identify worthwhile signings. It’s sometimes extremely difficult to sign a scout and you have to sign a foreign guy, so it’s looked upon as a “needs must” situation when signing scouts.

Signing Players.

All players should be first scouted before signing for an LL Club. Send your scouts out to Regions or Nations using the SWYCT or SYB (Scout Your Borders) guidelines, and decide which of the recommendations you’ll sign. Once the financial situation of your Club is better, and the Club’s reputation is such as you’d be able to attract foreign players, send your scouts further afield, keeping it as realistic as possible.

The exceptions are loans, in which it’s fine to use the player/staff search using minimum filters (e.g. for loan, free). Some feel that players that you loan in should be first discovered by your scouts. This is a personal preference used by some LLaMas. Again let your conscience be your guide

If you have no scouts it’s ok to use the player/staff search screen to identify players and to invite them for a trial period to ascertain whether they suit your squad.

Tactics.

Best to start off using a default tactic and altering formations or giving individual or team instructions to players based on the strengths or weaknesses of your squad, and NOT to use other people’s tactics or formations. The idea of LLM is finding out the errors of your ways though trial and error. Pinching other people’s ideas is not the way of the LLaMa.

What English Clubs count as LLM?

By definition, a Lower League Club must come from the Lowest Division available in any given Nation, as mentioned above.

In England, and any other Nation with "Feeder Leagues", e.g. Portugal or Italy, then the lowest available League is the "Feeder League", in England The Conference, but if the spec of your PC doesn't allow the "Feeder Leagues" to be loaded, then the Lowest available League becomes Division 3.

In Summary:

Conference North and Spoth - Lower League

Conference - Lower League-ish

League 2 - Lower League, but with reservations.

League 1 - Really pushing it.

Championship - You're having a laugh.

Some notes on Scouting Abroad and Identifying/Signing non-Scouted targets.

Several Nations have historic links with other Countries and as a result have a considerable number of foreign players with Teams that perhaps wouldn't normally be there, e.g. Brazilians in Portugal, Senegalese and North African Nationals in France or Middle Africans in Holland.

The way LLaMas "get round" this problem is usually to employ one Scout of the Nationality of the Country the players come from, e.g. Brazilian Scout in Brazil for a Portuguese Club, and he only Scouts in Brazil, again "normally" once a season but this can vary.

It can be argued that if you play against another Team twice in a season (four times in Scotland) that you would gain enough knowledge of players in that Team through those meetings or watching how the players do in the League against other Clubs to make a bid for them without relying on a Scout report.

SWYCT was originally formulated for playing with Conference Teams in CM3, but it doesn't lend itself easily to 03/04. However, it's still a good and fair guideline but use commonsense to gauge "reality".

I'll edit in/post the rest in a minute.

EDIT: Actually, that's pretty much it...

LL Random Team Generator (aka FRANK)

Well, I'm gonna start a 'Lower LEague Manager' game in a minute, and Frank has selected that I go with Redditch in the English Conference North...who I've never ever heard of.

Anyone wanna place bets on how long this game lasts? I've only ever gone 3 years, and I've done that twice. But I've started about 15 games which have gone (the longest) to December or (the shortest) about a week in.

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good luck I got them relegated, course I played by LLM rules which makes it impossible what with scouting within your borders and and all that shit. Somehow despite finishing dead last, I got tabbed by League Two Yeovil to replace their manager, then I spent 3 seasons there barely staying alive in League Two...so yea LLM is hard but good luck.

Well, to answer my question about "how long til I get bored of this game" question...the answer was 2 matches in, which equals to about 10 minutes.

Started a new game as England; want to see how the club teams do and build up a reputation doing something entertaining to me (lower league clubs can be really boring) and then go into club management down the line.

Yeah, Robben shouldn't be in there, Cesc Fabregas or Mathieu Flamini should. Based simply on the fact that Robben's only managed about 3 months of football this season (or something like that) and Fabregas has been pretty much ever present.

That said, from that list I voted for Shaun Wright-Phillips. He should've won it last year, and he better win it this year.

John Terry.

An exceptional leader, and an exceptional player. Whenever he plays, for club or country, he shows real passion and an unrivaled desire to win. He really has been head and shoulders over other defenders in the Premiership this year, and is, in my mind, the next England captain.

There's no other choice, although Cech, Lampard, Henry, Gerrard and AJ have all had good seasons - Terry has been outstanding. It's a travesty if anybody but Terry wins really.

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I don't agree with some things people say about Terry. Sure the guy is a brilliant defender, but he's not as good as Campbell or Ferdinand in my opinion.

There's the problem with who should be captain. Beckham and Owen should be nowhere near it, and Terry should wear it. But unfortunetly, he shouldn't be in the first-team if both Campbell and Ferdinand are fit, so unless we played five at the back, the best choice captain for England wouldn't get into the team.

Yeah, I only went a little bit off topic there

I'm a bit torn on this. While I know Lampard or Terry will win it (and they would easily deserve it if not for my picks), I had a tough time deciding between Cech and Henry.

They've been the best players this season. As good as Chelsea are, I don't think they'd be top (or at least miles away from the rest) if not for Petr Cech. Best goalkeeper in the world bar none, and if he doesn't win goalkeeper of the year away I'll be pissed.

That said, Henry is the top scorer in the country (or Premiership, whatever) and has more assists than anyone else in the Premiership. He's the most complete player I've seen in a long time, and he's been doing it all season long. Ok, he dropped off for a few games, but every player does that.

So, I voted for Henry.

I know the Inter players wouldn't want to annoy their own fans, but those interviewed after the game didn't seem to be that bothered by what had gone on - whereas other Milan players like Maldini were very critical of what had just happened.

The general consensus amongst us seems to be that Inter should be banned from European competitions, and if they can't control their fans then they shouldn't be allowed in the stadium either. The general consensus amongst UEFA is probably going to be that Inter will be 'kicked out' of this year's tournament (that they'd already blown), given a pathetic fine and will play a game or two behind closed doors. UEFA won't want to upset one of it's bigger clubs, as seen with Real Madrid in the past. I genuinely hope I'll be proved wrong, but I doubt it.

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I loved the way Andy van der Meyde said "these things happen in football" (or something along those lines).

Um, no the don't. Well, not in countries with semi-sane fans. They need a hefty punishment for this.

Well, neither Knights of the Old Republic or Championship Manager were even in the list whatsoever, so the list is pooh to me.

Mind you, Starcraft was in the top 10 so that's pretty awesome.

Your diaries are always great, but there's always the problem you have of sticking with one longer than a month (game-time).

I hope this one stays around for a long time though. Good luck. Oh, and I loved the backstory...for the third time

Bwahahaha, Rui Costa is a midget.

Yeah, unless a miracle happens, Chelsea are gonna win the Champions League.

On the Milan derby, they played the last couple of minutes of that Madrid match didn't they? Might do the same thing here.

Well, I'm gonna start a 'Lower LEague Manager' game in a minute, and Frank has selected that I go with Redditch in the English Conference North...who I've never ever heard of.

Anyone wanna place bets on how long this game lasts? I've only ever gone 3 years, and I've done that twice. But I've started about 15 games which have gone (the longest) to December or (the shortest) about a week in.

Back to girls, though - if you find Asian girls attractive over basically all others, does this mean you have a fetish or you're just weird? Is it racially supremacist? If you say that you don't particularly find dark-skinned women attractive, is this wrong? The moral dilemmas surrounding being 18 with unusual taste in girls.

RK!

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I know what ya mean. Althought I'm slightly different in that I find pretty much all black women to be butt ugly.

I don't see it being 'racist' or anything because it's preference.

Freddie Mercury

Jimi Hendrix

Bob Marley

Keith Moon.

John Lennon

They all changed the music worldin their own way (Moon as a part of the Who).

5. Marina Sirtis

My obsession with Star Trek is all the explaination that is needed.

4. Liv Tyler

It's all in the eyes.

3. Keira Knightley

2. Kirsty Gallagher

A hot woman who knows about football...what else is necessary?

1. Natalie Portman

Bad luck Matzat...maybe you'll end up at a concert with a decent band next time

lol, yeah trust me 1) she wouldn't care 2) they're links so you'd have to be semi-interested from the first picture to look and 3) I didn't post for you guys, this was supposed to be who our top 5 women are, and those are mine.

EDIT: but I'll remove them anyhow, since I do see little point in the alternate photos, thought we were just having some fun.

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Hey, if Spongebob wishes to share semi-naked photos of his girlfriend, it's fine by me (if she's over 16 ().

He could always PM them to me if he wants...

EDIT: ...fuck that

Now someone PM me and tell me how to make thumbnails...

The edit: Links removed. Warning issued. Don't do it again.

Yeah, I just checked and they're gone - but damn, I'll always have my memories.

I wonder who the top two are - I'm hoping one is Beyonce, but the other is a mystery. If it's Britney, Christina or J'Lo, I'm fucking shooting someone.

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If Beyonce or fucking J-Lo are 1st or second I'll shoot you. Bloody yiddo's...