The contents of this thread also appear in my Box of Sweets thread but Im exerpting them for ease of reference (and have amended them to make them better).
Introduction
The first day at your new club is perhaps the most important day of your FM career (and every first day of a new pre-season is the most important day of that season).
There are a number of things that you absolutely MUST do if you dont want to have serious problems later on. Most people find them boring as they delay the "real" action (buying and selling players and playing matches) for quite some time (it takes me between half an hour and 1 hour to do them).
But dont worry, if you do them once, they then become second nature and, I dare say it, enjoyable (and most importantly you will reap the rewards).
It would be helpful if you arm yourself with a couple of A4 size pieces of paper and a pen ...
Game start date
Aim to have as long a pre- season as possible. When choosing leagues bear in mind their start dates. To show you what I mean by an example in a save I started with GENK recently, I saw that the Belgium game start date is July but I chose the game to start in a different country so as to have it start in June and have an extra month of preparation.
Before the start of every new season you will get a message asking when you want pre-season to start. Choose an early date but also look for balance (give your players a reasonable holiday!). You need time not only for tactical preparations but (perhaps more importantly) to work on team cohesion which is very difficult to achieve especially if you buy too many players (see below)
Introduction
The first day at your new club is perhaps the most important day of your FM career (and every first day of a new pre-season is the most important day of that season).
There are a number of things that you absolutely MUST do if you dont want to have serious problems later on. Most people find them boring as they delay the "real" action (buying and selling players and playing matches) for quite some time (it takes me between half an hour and 1 hour to do them).
But dont worry, if you do them once, they then become second nature and, I dare say it, enjoyable (and most importantly you will reap the rewards).
It would be helpful if you arm yourself with a couple of A4 size pieces of paper and a pen ...
Game start date
Aim to have as long a pre- season as possible. When choosing leagues bear in mind their start dates. To show you what I mean by an example in a save I started with GENK recently, I saw that the Belgium game start date is July but I chose the game to start in a different country so as to have it start in June and have an extra month of preparation.
Before the start of every new season you will get a message asking when you want pre-season to start. Choose an early date but also look for balance (give your players a reasonable holiday!). You need time not only for tactical preparations but (perhaps more importantly) to work on team cohesion which is very difficult to achieve especially if you buy too many players (see below)
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