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Academies have been the subject of much debate in the FML world since... well, since their introduction in beta, really. There's still an awful lot of rubbish talked about academies by people who should know better, which is immensely disappointing and frustrating to read. I've thrown a lot out there in terms of what I know about academies through beta testing and conversations with the developers, and in so doing have probably come across as sounding awfully snooty and arrogant.
Now I'm not going to claim I'm not arrogant because I probably am, and I often let my indignance get the better of me so that accounts for snootiness. That said, I am genuinely trying to help people get the best they can out of their academies which can make attempts at being helpful all the more frustrating.
So what I'm going to do with this post is explain a little bit about how academies work. Most FML players have probably read this before, as I've already posted it on the SI forum ( http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=197427 ), but for those of you who missed it I hope it's helpful. It's based on a number of e-mail exchanges with Rob Cooper, the main man behind the academies system in FM Live.
Without further ado, here's roughly how the system works:
Each nation in the database has what Rob terms a "waiting room", a number of expected newgens, and a number of needed graduates.
For the number of expected newgens and their PA distribution, the game uses the original game database as a template – this means that new players should be distributed in terms of numbers and ability in a similar way to the distribution in the starting world. So there will be an increased chance of top players from Argentina, Brazil etc by virtue of the fact that there are more top players in the starting db from there, and there will be an increased number of players expected from England etc as there are usually more players in general from there.
The game tries to ensure there are always 50,000 players in the game world, and that at least 10% are youngsters (ages 15/16/17). What this means is that every time a player retires (meaning the total population drops) or a player ages (meaning the youngster population drops) a player is created to replace them. The game creates players based roughly on the breakdown in the master DB – meaning that if say 10% of starting DB players are from Brazil then 10% of new youngsters should be from Brazil too. This is the default behaviour – so if there are no academies this is how it will work.
Academies then work on top of this – so let’s say an obscure country should produce 10 players per season, but a user builds a 5 star academy there, then it will produce at least 16 players per season instead, to ensure the academy is full. If two academies are built, the game creates at least 32, and so on.
However this is where it becomes tactical - each nation has a cap on the number of "normal PA" graduates it will produce, meaning players that will be created with the PA distribution mentioned above. This cap is always at least 16, even if the nation would not normally produce that many newgens, to allow for one 5* academy per nation. If the game normally expects more than 16 newgens from a given nation, its cap will be higher. Any graduates required above and beyond this cap will created as low-potential filler just to make up the numbers, though with a 1 in 100 chance of having a "normal PA" for that nation. Thus, in heavily saturated areas like Brazil, you are likely to have say 15 academies vying for 60 newgens, and thus only getting 4 "normal PA" graduates each plus a lot of 1* filler. The question is, are those 4 Brazilians, with Brazil's typical CA/PA distribution, more use to you than having the only 5* academy in Yemen and getting all 16 Yemenis, with Yemen's typical CA/PA distribution?
Now when each newgen is created under the system described above, they are created as a template consisting purely of name, nationality, CA, and PA. They are then placed into a "Waiting Room", where they will remain for at least 7 days. This, incidentally, is why it will take 7 days or so for any academy to start producing graduates. When a space opens up in an academy, the code checks the waiting room and selects the best available newgen. He is then fleshed out with position, attributes, place of birth, all that loveliness and sent to the academy, however with a chance that in the midst of this process he ends up as a free agent. If he does, the academy in question will still get its required number of graduates - just not that particular individual. As mentioned above, I'm not sure on the specific numbers involved here.
Any newgens that are never picked up by an academy go to free agency, so if the game expects 20 Welshmen but there's only one 5* academy the other 4 are guaranteed to become free agents. I'm not sure what effect closing or downsizing academies would have on this figure, but I do know that some of the templates in the waiting room will never actually be "fleshed out". I assume therefore that closing/downsizing academies means their players simply aren't spawned.
So that's how it's working right now. Is that how it -should- be working? I'm not sure. I suggested a number of alternatives in beta, as did many others. This is what we currently have though, and we probably need to recognise that SI aren't likely to go back and rewrite the entire thing so any changes need to build on what we currently have.
Giving SI their due, they have asked what improvements and enhancements the community would like to see. That thread, for those who subscribe to the game, is found at http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=208559
What would I like to see? Just a little more control. I'd like my academy to be able to specialise in physical or technical players, I'd like to have a measure of control over positions of my graduates, and I'd REALLY like to be able to affect their preferred moves. Apart from that, I'm pretty happy with the system as it is now. Oh, I do have one more tiny request: I'd like every player to spawn at age 15, so they all get at least two full seasons of U17s football before they have to move up. That's particularly important for their physical development, and seems like it should be easy enough to code.
Oops, there I go again with my "I don't understand it so it must be easy to do..."
I learned something new on the beta forum today, though when I think about it more I do seem to recall hearing it at some point in the past two years. It didn't sink in until today though, in a thread with Paul Collyer discussing some of the ME's current "oddities".
Did you know that in Football Manager Live, if you do not choose a team captain, your goalkeeper is chosen automatically?
Now doesn't that explain a lot?
It came up while we were analysing a match about which I'd made a rather rant-ey post (which I actually edited the following morning to tone down, but still came across as rant-ey). I'd taken my level 17 Premiership side full of world class players away from home to a level 9 side in a competition where I had bad form, and come away with a 6-0 hammering in which at least three of the goals were the result of blatant ME flaws, and possibly a fourth.
Giving all credit where credit is due, Paul's acknowledged and agreed with my points, at least to a certain extent. It's the other analysis he provided unrequested that was fascinating though:
- Your captain had leadership 7 and a far lower reputation than most of your team. They dont like this. The FM assistant analysis would actually pick up on this I believe.
- The two teams are way apart in terms of reputation, but not so far apart in terms of CA. Think Villa-Arsenal. Your team expected to win, based on the team reputations. I expect they got caught cold, and didnt have the right captain to deal with it.
In other words, a big part of the reason for the scoreline and the abject performance was the captain. Good captain = higher possibility of a turnaround and dragging out a result. Bad captain = 6-0 thrashing and forum rant.
As part of the discussion, I've asked if there's any scope for changing that auto-assignment, but let's think about some of the potential consequences of the auto-captain usually being the goalkeeper:
- If Captain Keeper in a poor team is playing well, the team is more likely to rally around him and produce a shock result. How does that play into your superkeeper theory?
- If your own Captain Keeper isn't playing well (perhaps doesn't have much to do), that makes it more likely your team won't play at its full potential (think comebacks, one shot wonders, defenders losing concentration).
- If your Captain Keeper has lower reputation than the rest of your team, the second effect is more likely even if he is playing quite well.
As I said before, doesn't that explain a lot?
Lesson learned, folks. ALWAYS assign your captain if you don't want it to be the guy with the LOWEST teamwork in your squad!
FML is a funny old game, as most of the addicts will testify. Funny, unfortunately, doesn't necessarily mean you're laughing.
One of the odder quirks of my FML experience is that I've now come to be an Anglo-Scottish player with a Qatari alter-ego whose clubs are based in Hungary (mostly with Hungarian names) but whose playing staffs are mostly Bahraini. Such is simply how my FML career has panned out. It's this academies business that's to blame really, as I was quite happy being a Scottish manager of an Hungarian club until they came along.
What's even stranger, however, is that my academies in Bahrain have been... well, surprisingly good, actually. My all-Bahrain under 17 team in Miller's OFA finished runner up in both league and cup last season, spearheaded by whippet striker Ibrahim Abdulla and featuring some quite bizarre positional combinations (I had TWO D/AM RCs graduate last season alone, and a right footed D LC, but have waited three seasons for my first ML). The team who finished ahead of me in both - Melbourne Strikers - has spent a fortune on its youth programme both in money and skills, the sort of investment I could never justify. The average potential reading of my graduates seems to be a solid 3* (roughly 140 PA in old money), with a healthy smattering of 3.5s and a 4, so hopefully by the time they reach senior level I'll have a pretty solid squad to build on.
In order to facilitate that, I've set myself two new rules:
1. Never pay more than £2500 wage on a non-academy graduate senior.
2. Never buy a player younger than my oldest Bahraini, currently 20 year old striker Yousif Abduljallil whose attributes are as follows:
Now Hristo Stoichkov he is not, but I'm pretty happy with that for an average graduate. When I finally get relegated to my proper level (I was hideously overpromoted during Miller's FA changeover) I'm sure he'll do a decent job for me. Just average enough to be average!
So I've decided to completely start again on my blog, totally changing my approach. Out with the old and in with the new, yadayada.
I'm hoping to blog quite regularly on FML, both beta and live, though I'm under no illusions: My unmotivated self will probably see this last a week before I stop posting, and my tendency for random changes of direction will probably see that week be completely disjointed, but hey it's a blog so what does it matter?
So to be clear from the outset, I'm involved in three FML worlds - two betas and one live. In two of them I'm part of the moderation team, and in the live one I'm a regular punter. I'm also very heavily involved in the beta, and quite a regular forum contributor. In other words, I have far too much time on my hands and I'm close to being addicted to a game I spend at least 50% of my time hating.
Great fun. Here goes nothing.
