One success that's not specific to a version but is a success in playing FM.
I began in FM with the FM05. I used to manage Burgos, the city where I was born, when it was a Segunda B side (third level). Some times I picked some League 1 or 2 from England or a top division team, but most were with Burgos.
Every game went the same: preseason went good, I played Atlético de Madrid and was competitive, losing 0-1 and making them sweat to get their goal or drawing. Some times I even managed a goal to lose 1-2 or draw 1-1. I think once I won! Then the season began and I invariably lost the first game against a weak team. Form could pick up after that, but sooner rather than later it went sour and I started to lose. Until a nagging idea emerged: preseason had lowered level to make you happy and think you can win things and then it came the hammer with harder season, but stay because that preseason seemed like you could win things.
Then the AI scored 9/10 one on ones. And my team missed 9/10 one on ones. It's so much easier for the AI. The human has to get a ton of chances to maybe get a goal. AI's goalkeeper is overpowered no matter how bad his attributes and mine was underpowered no matter how much better he could be. And the other way around for strikers. It was an outrageous game, a cheating piece of rubbish, no matter what the fanbois from the forums I looked at said.
So as rage started to mount, I stopped playing and the game was out of the PC.
Time passed, rage was forgotten, I reinstalled and tried again with the same results.
But at each iteration I began to look a little further. I started to have a basic understanding on what attributes to look for each position and not be lost in the sea of numbers. Then I began to think some in the tactics, I found wwfan threads. I began to think and realize that there was a lot of info that the graphic representation couldn't provide or that was not easy to interpret and began to make ideas of what could be causing my chances to not be as good as they looked, to make my one on ones not being as good as the AI's and allowing the AI easier one on ones.
Then I started a new game, with a League 2 team (Dag & Red)... and lo and behold! Success! I got Dag & Red promoted to League 1 and kept it there. I moved to Oldham and turned it from a bottom League One to a midtable League One. Since I thought I wouldn't keep it growing I applied for Wigan, who had just been relegated from Premier Division... and I got it! I promoted them to the Premier division with great results and then I was competitive in the Premier. Then I took Portsmouth in the Premier.
And guess what. Season wasn't harder than preseason, it was tactic familiarity and squad gelling. All those times in Burgos and others I had done too many sales and purchases and too little match training. Guess what else. My teams scored 9/10 one on ones and the AI missed 9/10. Indeed, it was tactics, after all! The fanboys were saying the truth and weren't fanboys. I was the one being silly thinking all that nonsense. If something seemed to go regularly in favour of the AI it was not any kind of conspiracy or cheat, it was some problem in my tactics and I would have to hunt for it. Then, when I found it, that problem vanished.
And since then, FM is a very enjoyable game that I like very much. Some whines annoy me because it reminds me of having fallen into some silly ideas and because they make me think the user are denying themselves a lot of enjoyment by letting themselves be lead by the frustration of unexpected losses and getting blinded to find their way. Of course, there are things that make me feel annoyed, stupid mistakes by a player costing a game, maybe a title, odd animations that make it look like something really silly had happened (but it's an illusion); but I know not to be carried by it and think what is the cause behind it. Sometimes it may be just a player has low concentration and he just can't keep awake all the game, sith happens every jedi dies; other times it's that I asked them to play so fast they make the wrong choice or so slow they let rivals catch them with the ball... but regardless, I enjoy solving the issues from the tactics and getting my teams to over achieve. And above all, I love taking Burgos CF to beat Real Madrid with four shots, two on target, against their twenty seven shots, fifteen on target. WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE