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| Thread: Championship Manager Season 97-98 | |
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terje_the_ma...
Responsible
Supreme Hero
Disciple of Herodotus
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posted February 08, 2005 09:39 PM |
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Championship Manager Season 97-98
The best manager game ever, imo. Does anyone agree?
The later ones were just pale copies of this game; pale copies with new and shiny wrappings, but still pale...
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"Sometimes I think everyone's just pretending to be brave, and none of us really are. Maybe pretending to be brave is how you get brave, I don't know."
- Grenn, A Storm of Swords.
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The_Workers
Hired Hero
Red Menace of HC
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posted February 21, 2005 01:43 AM |
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I couldn't agree more.
Sure, like you said, the later CMs have all those fancy functions, like media handling, training set ups, and possibilities for your strategy/tactics decicions to actually influence matches, but they don't have soul. And soul is what it's all about.
And if it's one thing CM97-98 has, it's soul. I mean, the game's practically excentric! Just listen to this:
CM97-78 has:
Just one stadium pic pr. team, if that.
Unreliable transfer markets; sometimes you can't find a player with decent stats for sale, and so you have to make different solutions.
Smaller sums of money involved.
Better players (I mean, come on! Ibrahima Bakayoko, for Christ's sake!)
More rigid match/season/game structure.
And more!
Just gotta love it! 
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Workers Of All Countries, Unite!
...the ruling ideas are the rulers' ideas...
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DoddTheSlayer
Promising
Famous Hero
Banned from opening threads
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posted May 12, 2005 12:43 AM |
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Yes. This is a game i return to now and again.
Do you know about retired players respawning as youths with the same stats.
Just make a note of the passing, positioning, technique and tackling and the players position and the keep them on your shortlist. They wont retire until you take them off the shortlist, so you wait until you need a star player in that position and then take e.g. Alan shearer at age 38 off your shortlist at the end of the season and at the beginning of next season if he is not listed you search for a striker youth with those 4 stats the same. If we keep this thread going i will get back with the English and foreign players i have found best for this and we can compare.
I am of course assuming that anyone playing this game over time knows about these respawns and has built a list. But there is your answer about finding good players.
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Retaliation is for the foolish. Silence is wisdom
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terje_the_ma...
Responsible
Supreme Hero
Disciple of Herodotus
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posted May 12, 2005 06:34 PM |
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I never actually wrote any lists, but I couls scan through a save someday, and put down a few names I remember... 
As an example, there are lots of good, but old, Hungarians around.
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"Sometimes I think everyone's just pretending to be brave, and none of us really are. Maybe pretending to be brave is how you get brave, I don't know."
- Grenn, A Storm of Swords.
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DoddTheSlayer
Promising
Famous Hero
Banned from opening threads
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posted May 19, 2005 07:38 AM |
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My game plan
CM2 97/98 CUSTOM FORMATION TACTICS
( Some of this content may be considered by some to be a SPOILER )
Ok.To expand on my above post i have done a little work her and i am going to give away all of my CM2 secrets. First let me introduce you to my unique system which uses a custom formation that is a little unusual but very effective and it is based around the regenerated youths from mostly well known star players whom we have most of us heard of. The players are specifically chosen to fit my custom formation, but that does not mean that these players will not do well in your own preferred formation. Right now i am go to show you my formation and then i will be easier to explain why it is so effective. Below is a link where you can view it.
NOTE.With this link and all the others that i am going to insert when you first view it, it will be very small and impossible to decipher. This is not a problem because you will only need to put you mouse pointer anywhere in the white text area and a logo will appear bottom right for you to bring up the full size page. There is probably a better way but this is my first time out doing this kind of thread. Anyway here it is.
http://img237.echo.cx/img237/2121/customformation9xc.png
Chart
You will notice that there are no right or left backs and no wing backs. This is because i have found from years of playing the game that these are the hardest positions for which to find players that play consistently well, especially if you are using only the English league which being from the UK i always do.
Also all my teams are built around future international management of the England team so i made a custom formation that puts all my players in the positions that they play best in.
Positions 5, 7 & 8 are worth a special mention here. Yes it is true that putting your central midfielders this high up field would leave you vulnerable in central midfield in the real world, but this is CM2 97/98 world and trust me when i say that your left and right central midfielders will show a dramatic improvement in both all round performance and their average rating. You will see more goals and assists from them which is what we want from our midfielders.
Position 5 is also the best place for any anchor player. Average ratings above 8 are not uncommon, so if you like the 4-5-1 and the 3-1-3-3 Ajax formation you will notice that the anchors used in that position do really well. I find that direct play works best with this custom formation, only switching to passing if i drop back the two central midfielders back level with my wingers to play against the dreaded 4-2-4 formation.
Go on give this formation a try, you wont be disappointed.
Now for the next phase om my tutorial i am going to give you charts, charts and more charts. To be specific one chart for each of the 11 positions giving a list of some of the players i have found to be the most outstanding.
Before i do this here is a list of points to bear in mind as you look at each chart in order of importance.
1. All the names you see in all the charts are for recognition purposes only. The intention is for you to put these players on your shortlist until you are ready to generate a youth from them at the end of a season at which point you will remove that player. In this regard you will rarely if ever generate a player with the same surname, only one with the same 4 stats i am using and the positions and nation will also remain the same.
2. We are only using the stats for Technique Tackling Passing and Positioning for the purpose of recognizing the regenerated corresponding youth. In the unlikely event of you getting 2 players with those 4 stats the same you can always check with the editor to match further stats.
NOTE also that many of these player are well into their 30's at the beginning of season 1 and so if you are not putting them on your shortlist you need to keep an eye out for them at the start of each new season.
3. Not all of these regenerated star youths will be floating around on the free transfer market and of the ones that are not there are three types. (A).These youths will be willing to join you and the club will not be able to stop them due to them having a big club release clause in their contract and you being a much bigger club. (B).These youths are willing to join you from a smaller club, but do not have this clause, but they only have a year or two on their contract in which case you will be able to get them towards the end of their contract or after its expired. Keep them on you shortlist in case of any bids. (C)These are the hardest to lynch being attached to clubs as big as yours and only willing to join you if you are doing really well in the top flight of your league and have a manager rating of either very good or superb. Roberto Baggio is a good example, but there are many others, and if you know who they are as i do then it is as well to not let their counterparts retire until you have such a rating as a manager.
4. You will notice as you look at these charts that some of the players fields with no value in them for some
of their stats. To explain this i will use Michael Owen to explain this. At the beginning of any new game Owen will always have 18 Technique, but his other stats be random. They will however remain the same when he retires and then regenerates within the same saved game, so for these players you have to make a note of these other stats at the start of a new game. Goalkeepers are a very different story and the hardest of all to match to their retired counterparts, and i will leave the goalie chart till last and explain more about them later. TIP Always have a save game labled "stat tester" that you leave on season 1 that you can refer
back to if you in say season 16 and you find a really good player and you don't know who his counterpart is or if he even has one that is traceable. Then you just make a note of those 4 stats and go back to your stat tester save and edit the fields accordingly in your search. Sometimes you will be disappointed and find no matches for any of the stats, other times you will get a match for all 4 stats and still other times you will only get a match for 2 out of 4 and still be unsure, so then you just check with the editor to see if those 2 stats are always the same. If they are then you have a new addition for you list.
5. You will notice that not only i am biased towards English, but also that i very rarely list players from outside the EEC. this is not because i am racist or because i don't consider these players good enough. I t is merely because of the work permit restrictions in the English leagues that mean a player from outside the EEC must play 75% of all the matches they are eligible for or they do not get their permit renewed and then i am stuck with a player i cannot use. I use a lot of rotation in my system due to my building squads almost entirely from these generated youths and once they start coming through it gets harder and harder to give these players the number of matches the need to keep them. BTW i have always been short of decent players for positions 3 at left_central defence and 11 left wingers so any suggestions will come in useful.
6. And finally before i dish out all my charts, note that some players are marked by an asterisk or two.
* Means that this player is particularly outstanding, always getting average ratings from 7. 70 upwards.
** Means this player while being outstanding, is also highly injury-prone, and could leave you short.
Anyway forward we go and here are all my charts. Sorry that its a cut and paste job for now but if i can figure out a way to change it later, i will do so.
STRIKERS.
http://img262.echo.cx/img262/7069/strikers6yw.png
chart
FORWARDS.
http://img262.echo.cx/img262/5298/forwards2fc.png
chart
WINGERS_LEFT.
http://img262.echo.cx/img262/7219/wingersleft6rr.png
chart
WINGERS_RIGHT.
http://img262.echo.cx/img262/5569/wingersright7vx.png
chart
MIDFIELD LEFT_CENTRE.
http://img278.echo.cx/img278/1792/midfieldleftcentre8kb.png
chart
MIDFIELD RIGHT_CENTRE.
http://img272.echo.cx/img272/1295/midfieldrightcentre9hk.png
chart
ANCHORS.
http://img262.echo.cx/img262/2808/anchors7iv.png
chart
DEFENCE/SWEEPER_CENTRE.
http://img262.echo.cx/img262/2808/anchors7iv.png
chart
DEFENCE LEFT_CENTRE.
http://img272.echo.cx/img272/3372/defenceleftcentre7il.png
chart
DEFENCE RIGHT_CENTRE.
http://img272.echo.cx/img272/1665/defencerightcentre5ew.png
chart
Ok that concludes my selections of all the outfield players. As i said before Selecting a generated youth goalkeeper from a retired one is the trickiest of all. This is because we only have 2 stats that will always remain the same, and they are Technique and Shot stopping, so you see the difficulty; That with only 2 stats on which to compare you could retire you goalkeeper and then next season you find 5 or more young goalies that have the same 2 stats. Which one do you choose. The following chart will show you how and i am going to use David Seaman as an example.
DAVID SEAMAN.
http://img273.echo.cx/img273/884/davidseaman5cn.png
chart
Ok with that hopefully clear explanation of how to get your star goalkeeper here is my goalie chart.
Note that although some of these have a * next to them, no goalie that is found this way is as reliable as the outfield players, and they almost always take longer to play at their best sometimes getting into their late twenties as in real life.
GOALKEEPERS.
http://img272.echo.cx/img272/9573/goalkeepers2tq.png
chart
Ok that concludes all my charts and we are nearly done. all that remains now are a few tips on nurturing your youths up to international standard, but before i do there is one more important point to mention.
NOTE. When you take a player off you shortlist to retire him at the end of any given season remember that if it is a year that you have just finished an international tournament or to put it another way; a year that ends with an even number you will start the new season on the same day that the old season ended.
However, if the year ends with an odd number then the game almost always advances a few days after the auto save, and you can find that by the time you come to search for your generated youth, that he has either
got the maximum number of teams bidding for him or worse still he has already been snapped up. Also at this point you are still in the post season rather than the start of a new season as you would be at the end of an international tournament season. So it is important to remember that when it is an odd year that you youth will be generated in the post season after the messages about retired managers and not at the beginning of the new season. About the game advancing a few days, all you need do is wait until the the game has either auto saved or forced you to save and as soon as you get control of the game after that just press shift plus * to exit the game without saving, then when you reload you will be starting the post season at the same time as all the other managers which is only fair.
REARING YOUR YOUTH.
I have only a few things left to give away now and for this subject the key word is PATIENCE. These youngsters will come through for you, but you have to know how to bring them along. I have found that by far the best way to do this is to manage a second lower league team and then send them out to that team on loan. This way you have full control over how many matches they play and whether or not they are starters
or subs. Even if you find yourself with an outstanding very early though it is still best to keep them on loan until they start complaining about wanting regular 1st team play. This is often though not always a good indicator that they are ready to come back home. Use your own judgement as to when you start using them as a regular starter.
Well that's me done here. I don't know whether or not this will inspire anyone who knows the game to take it up again, but i had a lot of fun constructing and posting this so happy reading.
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Retaliation is for the foolish. Silence is wisdom
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terje_the_ma...
Responsible
Supreme Hero
Disciple of Herodotus
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posted May 19, 2005 06:50 PM |
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Just a quick question: You did find these stats in the editor, right? Because the stats in the game are notoriously unstable...
Brilliant post, btw! 
EDIT: Hmm. The --- in some of Michael Owen's stats make me believe that the stats came from the editor.
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"Sometimes I think everyone's just pretending to be brave, and none of us really are. Maybe pretending to be brave is how you get brave, I don't know."
- Grenn, A Storm of Swords.
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DoddTheSlayer
Promising
Famous Hero
Banned from opening threads
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posted May 19, 2005 06:57 PM |
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Yes over the years i have made a habit of always checking with the editor to confirm that the 4 stats are fixed and will always regenerate the same, and so everyone listed in these charts has been checked against the editor.
EDIT. Ok all correct and clickable now. Glad you like the post Terje and hopefully there are more people in the community that still like the game and we can keep it going a little.
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Retaliation is for the foolish. Silence is wisdom
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SirDunco
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted June 05, 2005 09:38 AM |
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I've played probably every CM that was made, but i'd have to dissagree.
The old ones were good, but didn't offer enought variabilitz for my tast. Those few leagues didn't satisfy... I have to say that the newest one is probably most thought through, more leagues , including mz national one, and more players than ever before... eventhought i liked the 97/98 and still play it from time to time I can't agree on that one...
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DoddTheSlayer
Promising
Famous Hero
Banned from opening threads
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posted July 10, 2006 04:16 PM |
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Lol. I hear that with some of the latest management games there is an option for time wasting.
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Retaliation is for the foolish. Silence is wisdom
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