JasonM

What the shit, I'm stuck in New Vegas. I don't have any missions to do because I pissed off the Legion and the NCR. And I don't want to piss the Brotherhood off since I'm one of them.

Bollocks.

Kill enough Legion/NCR to get back into the graces of the opposite.

Having recomposed myself after that ending, just man, what a great episode it was in terms of storytelling.

It dragged along a bit in the middle, seeing it was 9/10 table setting for the future episode, but generally it felt very strong throughout.
Also very interested in the Asher storyline, since he's probably going to be the lord now...

Also, Fuck Ramsay Snow... But he completely stole the show in that episode, everyone was strong, and the Lannisters were pretty ace too. But it's obvious that the writers had much much more leeway with Ramsay, and I feel this fleshes him out (pun intended) even more, he's just so completely evil that you can't help to see his commeupance... Knowing full well he can't die, because of him being in the TV Series.

GoT E1 spoilers...

Fuck... Ramsay... Snow...

I'll be picking up the game on Friday after talking with Meacon. I'm not as familiar with Baseball as I was in the 90's so all of the current guys are going to be new to me. Hopefully I can become more familiar with it. I attempted to get back into baseball this past season by my work schedule messed it all up.

Well the game works with a overall/potential star system, so even if you don't know the names, you can still gauge if they're any good by checking their star ratings... Of course, not always true because players can play above their scouted level, and vice versa.

Sellout.

He didn't sell out, he bought in... To FIFA fair play bans.

In true Vendee fashion, the final game of the season was a complete circus act. Losing 8-4 to Auxerre and pretty much doing everything wrong and right at the same time, and in turn it's a true reflection of the season I had with the team...

Expected to finish 12th, and fight for relegation. We were never really in the mix for relegation, and we finished a respectable 10th out of 18.

We improved in winning over last year with 13 wins instead of 12 wins... But on the other hand we had less draws, and we had 15 losses instead of 10 losses.

On top of that our offense was 4th in the league with 57 goals, and our defense was second to last with 66 against, only being ''defeated'' by the would-be last who had 81...

We had a whopping 81 yellow cards, second to the 18th places team who had 83...

Our ''good'' form was more than celebrated by the fans, as they came in droves to see the game. Our average attendance being 598 per game, 14th in the league, 8.55% capacity... Gotta love those loyal fans showing what's up!

All in all, we had 1 point less than last season, but we never hit the relegation zone after the first game post-winter break.

Team topscorer had 14 goals, showing how diverse scoring was (and how useless the striker truly was in the grand scheme, because he had 13...)

But we did very well, especially seeing the wage bill was down almost 30K compared to last year, and being able to deliver a comparable point total should be promising for the future.

And on top of all of that, we reached the 9th round of the cup, by completely shit-kicking Stade Reims in the 8th round.

So in closing, we had a decent year. Our defense was complete dogshite, and our efficient offense was overwhelmed by the turnstile defense.

Hopefully in the off-season I can bolster my shitty defense, maybe find a better striker to really put the offense into overdrive, and finally get that cunt of a director to allow me to learn for my C license!!!

Finally, I hope that France gets nuked from orbit. Fuck this league, fuck this team, and fuck this god-forsaken country... Hopefully I can break through next season so I can feck off to a country where no-one speaks any French!

My body is ready!

I think Heskey has been messing around with his birth certificate again...

I think every save I've had since FM05 Rooney has been utterly useless. I've never seen him develop into a world-class player, or even a player with an average rating above 7.

You need to give him more burgers!

Random acts of violence are always the solution. Always

My 55 bookings in 22 games team agree with you.

Teaching those French sissies how to play proper footie, GET IN THERE MY SON!

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEETH!!!!

In part I saw it coming in a way, but it still dissapoints me greatly. They tease Beth escaping for so long, and then she just bites it... Very heartbreaking, and dissapointing. It feels like there hasn't been any change at all. 4-5 episodes of ''wasting time'' to kill off Beth.

But I am glad that she starred, and that she finally had the development she deserved. She was overlooked since she debuted, so I guess it's a good way to truly showcase her... And then in true TWD fashion kill her off.

Also, I expected more people to leave Slabtown aside from Noah. Especially the Doctor guy, who for most of the arc made it clear he was going to get abandoned if they find another doc.

And finally, the opening of the episode was heavy in it's own right. It just shows how much Rick has gone from being the doormat of the group, to being an absolute ruthless leader who isn't afraid of hitting someone with a car and then capping him in cold blood... Last season he bit someones throat out, this season he kills someone in cold blood. And through the entire arc it's felt more and more that Rick's group are starting to become more and more like the ruthless bandits they face.

Now if Daryl ever dies, I'm gonna be pissed off!

Picked up Game Dev Tycoon, my MMO "World of Stasiak" got 100m buys even without expansion packs. The possibilities are endless.

Everyone goes crayziak for the Stasiak.

Well, my first full season with Vendee Lucon started off... Shitty.

10 games, 2 sporadic wins, 2 draws, and 6 losses put me second to last in the league, and made me dread for the rest of the season as we had a top 2 scoring team, but also a bottom 2 conceding team.

But then I got very lucky with two easy cup sides, which I dominated 4-0 and 6-2, and that gave the team the much needed morale boost.

Since that start, I've had 10 more games. 4 league wins, 1 league draw, 1 league loss... But i've continued winning in the cup with a 2-1 win against minnow Saujon...

Round 8, and I got the extremely unlucky draw away from home against Stade Reims (who are in the running to return to rebound back to L1)... So needless to say, I was counting my final days in the cup...

10th minute, David N'Gog scores 1-0 for Reims, so all hope seemed to fleet away... Got a lucky penalty call in the 37th minute for 1-1... 5 minutes after it became 1-2, 70th minute it became 1-3, 77th 1-4, 85th 1-5, and 90th 1-6!

I went to Reims expecting a hard loss, and I walked out with a 1-6 win against a MUCH better team. With my right winger getting 2 assists and a double penalty hat-trick!

So i'm not only in the 9th round (of 14) of the French cup, but i'm also on a 8 game unbeaten streak where I got 26 goals for, and 9 against!

Hopefully the team can keep it up for as long as possible, so that we stand a strong chance to rake in a lot of cup money, and also get a strong position in the league.

Needless to say, I'm extremely excited right now, and sitting 11th after 16, 5 points removed from #3, there's still a lot of hope for a push for promotion this season.

43 games into the first season, and Trey Burke has all but decided to go onto Free Agency at the end of the season. He's not been working out for me personally either, so I decided to pull the trigger and trade him.

Got a ''great'' deal for rookie Elfrid Payton. Best defending guard of the draft, and even though he can't shoot for shit, he will shore up my perimeter defense, and he got a 2+2 deal, so I have plenty of time to build him up to a better scorer in the meantime. And it's gonna be interesting seeing him compete with Dante Exum for the starting PG spot in the future, both are rookies, both have their own skills. So they will be a good fit together regardless of who wins the starting battle.

Now I still got to think about what I will do with Alec Burks, who also is undecided about staying or leaving. I can't really afford to let him go for nothing, but I do need a scoring option in the backcourt because he's been really effective shooting wise.

Suggestions are of course, always welcome

Cillessen for 7M is a steal if I ever saw one.

No, he's just had an ok world cup and is extremely overrated.

So it's a steal.

Cillessen for 7M is a steal if I ever saw one.

Finished the season with Vendee Lycon.

And in 11 games, I shockingly won 7 of them, drawing 2, and losing 2. The team seemed to click with the tactics I was trying to use, and up until the last match the team was in the best form of the league. Started at 15th and in relegation zone, finished in 11th with a good 12 points away from relegation, so it was a really good showing, a complete opposite of my previous job where I lost practically everything.

Now I need to prepare for the next season, there isn't any cash to go around, and the owner is in the process of selling the club. If I get lucky (as if), someone with money takes over and helps the team become bigger. Of course, if i'm unlucky, the new board will can me and i'm back where I started.

I got nothing in terms of youth prospects, so i'll have to find some good freebies where I can, without spending a lot on wages.

EDIT: And the club got bought... By Portsmouth leech, Alex Gaydamak. No doubt looking to grab all the money he can from the coffers that are completely empty... oh.

Fergie was doing that with Rafael and Fabio for years.

What, the one time both were fit at the sane time?

No.

At least that's what they want you to think.

You can look but you can't touch! Because i'll be injured if you do.

You can designate pretty much anything training wise, along with a whole host of other stuff. The biggest change to training is that the game now allows you to count as a coach, which is pretty vital especially at smaller clubs.

That's good, hopefully that new aspect will enable me to at least get my head around the training side of it a bit.

You can't compare 08 with 15, because there has been a massive change in the past 7 years.

The entire tactics system is different now, no more sliders. Scouting has changed, coaching has changed. You get more input from your staff members, especially your assistant.

The match engine (for better or worse) has been completely revamped, and aside from nagging issues it's better than it ever was.

This year there was also an overhaul of your own manager. Like Jack above said, your manager now has his own attributes just like every other backroom member. You can make it as easy/hard as you will, you can still make him a former pro with a FIFA pro license that gives you an extremely high attribute range... Or you can be like me, and go with no coaching license, and sunday league history, which gives you fuck all in attributes and challenges you to somehow sweet talk your board into giving you coaching coarses to become better.

You can now give touchline instructions, and there is more focus on personal instructions than ever. Finally formations and tactics are set up using ''player roles'', which pretty much ranges from poachers to False Nines and everything in between.

If you loved the crap out of FM08, it's gonna take a while to get into FM15. But it's a much more in depth game than 7 years ago, and for the most part it's a much better game too.

And as a final argument... There's a 6-month demo out! http://www.footballmanager.com/demo

Thanks for all that Jason - much appreciated! I had a brief dabble with FM11 but not too in-depth, the press conferences were one of the striking changes then (and the 3D engine but I've never liked the idea of that in the FM series) but I imagine it's changed a lot in four more iterations from even that game now.

The 'Player Roles' aspect of tactics sounds good, I always thought more in-depth work was needed on the formations/tactical side of things. What is in places nowadays instead of sliders?

I'm pretty sure I'm going to pick this game up once the semester is finished, hopefully the game will not have moved on too far for me to get back into it again.

Buttons. I won't say it's more in depth with the new system, but it tends to be more obvious when you want to achieve something.

Here's a screenshot of the team instructions screen.

Can anyone recommend any decent away day tactics in the PL? My home form is excellent with Norwich, but I'm struggling to pick up points on the road.

Away from home I'm playing 4-1-2-2-1 (4-3-3 with a holding midfielder and wingers)

Maybe play more compact and more defensively away from home. You can't really attack away from home against comparable or better sides, you tend to get eaten up.

So a more low down 4-1-4-1 that's focused on countering and frustrating the opponent away from home, rigid defense with little closing down and players staying on their feet, to force the opponent to shoot it from range more often than not.

Since most teams tend to attack at home, a counter tends to work pretty well at getting a goal. When you can't score a goal, you just try to keep them off the ball by playing a hyper-possession game of passing it around endlessly until they get frustrated.

Jose Calderon is hitting threes like I eat fried chicken. Frequently.

Too bad JR Smith is seemingly a vegetarian...

You can't compare 08 with 15, because there has been a massive change in the past 7 years.

The entire tactics system is different now, no more sliders. Scouting has changed, coaching has changed. You get more input from your staff members, especially your assistant.

The match engine (for better or worse) has been completely revamped, and aside from nagging issues it's better than it ever was.

This year there was also an overhaul of your own manager. Like Jack above said, your manager now has his own attributes just like every other backroom member. You can make it as easy/hard as you will, you can still make him a former pro with a FIFA pro license that gives you an extremely high attribute range... Or you can be like me, and go with no coaching license, and sunday league history, which gives you fuck all in attributes and challenges you to somehow sweet talk your board into giving you coaching coarses to become better.

You can now give touchline instructions, and there is more focus on personal instructions than ever. Finally formations and tactics are set up using ''player roles'', which pretty much ranges from poachers to False Nines and everything in between.

If you loved the crap out of FM08, it's gonna take a while to get into FM15. But it's a much more in depth game than 7 years ago, and for the most part it's a much better game too.

And as a final argument... There's a 6-month demo out! http://www.footballmanager.com/demo

Has anyone tried that tactic created by Miles Jacobson (it's available in the Sega Humble Bundle right now)? I don't have the game to test it out, but is it supposed to be some kind of cheat tactic or just a template that makes things more accessible for newcomers?

I bet it's a blank 4-4-2, complete with this hand written note from Miles.

And you don't have to pay 50 bucks for it. I've paid 25 euros for it on a keysite. And i'm not advocating using that of course, but there are less expensive ways.

In February, finally managed to find a new job...

Vendée Lucon, a lower league French club that's on the edge of relegation zone. Objective is to get them out of said zone before the end of the season... No biggie right?

Well, apparently they have only 1 center back injured... I somehow won my first game 2-1, breaking their 6 game losing streak... But 3 players got injured in the process, because when it rains it pours.

So ive gone around and offered a bunch of trials to lots of free agents that are interested. I got 6 days before my next game, so hopefully I can bolster my squad with decent free guys to somehow survive.