As promised, I will start a beginners' gude to try and help out new managers. There are lots of things to cover so I will do it in a couple of posts.
In my 1st post, I will try to cover the introduction to the game with some general advice. (Wulfman also covered that in basics for each segment - Take a look at the information under the small "i" in all areas of the game .)
If anyone has specific questions, feel free to ask. But I will not go into too much detail about player development for example because it's up to each of us to find it out.
a) Introduction
First of all, this is a true manager game in which every move you make has an impact on multiple fields in short, medium and long term. That is why it is important to make as few mistakes possible and I would say the best managers in the game are the ones that make the fewest mistakes. The game has a learning curve so it is normal to try things out, fail and learn from your mistakes but here you can find some answers and skip the usual rookie mistakes.
Your starting position is
limited but offers you a base on which you can build your future:
1) Bank account: 10.000 EUR - limited resources, you need to spend wisely so try not to spend too much too soon (avoid unnecesary staff, player, racket purchases)
2) Start in Amateur league 1 or
2 (8th or 9th strength divison) - good because if offers you a chance to earn money from the sponsors and league premiums (depends on your league position at the end of the season), and gain experience as you move up the ranks.
3) Your team - consists of 5 adult, weak players with no real future + 3 youth players. (possible strategies will be explained separately)
4) 1 staff slot –
doesn't help you much in your first season, just raises your costs so it is wise to avoid any purchases in season 1.
5) Hall for home games - Very small hall with
80+20+5 for total of 105 home game spectators.
b) Building up a team, training, staff
As written above - at first you have 5 adult players that are not really good + 3 youth players, all of which you can use to differently, depending on the gameday of the season.
My general advice here depends on whether it is preseason, gameday 1-3 or later and here's why:
1) Preseason - as a premium member, you have an option to loan 1-2 players. That allows you to sell (at least) 3 out of 5 adult players to earn money and loan equal or better players that can help you in your first 3-5 seasons.
2) Gameday 1-3 - fresh start of the season usually offers 16 year old players on the pool that can be a base for the first 10-15 seasons. Most of them will costs from 5.000 to 9.000 EUR, talent 15-40 (higher is better), experience 20-50, stamina 50+ and possibly a special skill.
My advice here is to look for 3 (most) important things and try to find a compromise - player with high talent (30+), enough stamina (80-90+) and special skill - leg work.
1 or 2 such players are more than enough at this point, especially if you were able to loan 2 players in the preseason. In that case, you do not need those adult players you were awarded at the beginning so feel free to sell them and gather some money.
3) Gameday 4 - 18 - Options are a bit more limited, but it is possible to find players mentioned above - just depends if it is worth it because the earlier you buy and start developing a player, the more experience, ability and skill points (for special skills) will be gathered. Here I would suggest to sell 2-3 starting players and buy (1) 16 year old player.
Youth players - starting youth players can be used differently - as a build up team (which I would not advise for several reasons) or as money source (if you do not play them, they will slowly rise in value so you can sell them to pool when they reach 16 years of age). The third option is to just fire them to the pool but it could be wise to just use them as option 2.
My advice is to avoid buying/developing youth players in seasons 1-4.
Training, special training, staff - Player development (ability wise) depends on several factors: talent, usage of special training and staff.
Special training is used for developing young players for the future or maintenance of older players so try not to use it on all your players in the beginning. If you take my advice, use it on above mentioned 16 year old players you buy and/or 11 year old you got.
Staff - it would be wise to avoid buying trainers and other staff in Season 1 or 2, but if you believe you should, rather do it in season 2 after your premiums and sponsor money kick in (buy a trainer or youth trainer, not stamina trainer and definitely not other staff)
Here are also other important things such as:
a) Player-trainer ratio - if you have too many players on only 1 trainer - your improvement will be slow so my advice is not to buy a trainer in your first season because there is not much you gain from it.
b) Player age - younger players improve faster, lets say from age 10 do 16-17, improve normally but the improvement slows down and eventully shuts down as your players get older.
c) Player ability - Up to ability 100, the rise is fast but afterwards it slows down. Special training gets more important in that case.
General advice on how to develop your players - take a look at player auctions from time to time, try to analyze the players that are offered (ability distribution, skills), make screenshots to have a reference. You can easily access player results in all leagues and think about why some of those players have good/bad score.
Also, it's always a good idea to monitor the development of your players (you can create an Excel file and write down the progress on a daily basis).
Speedgame - really important for gathering information, testing out different development tactics (ability distribution, importance of experience, basic knowledge on how player to trainer ratio works)..
c) Lineup, tactics, friendly games
1) Lineup - there are different important factors here such as: player development (experience and skills), stamina, winning. You need to find a balance, depending on your goals.
My general advice is to always put the most important player you develop on 1st position to maximise his experience gain. As mention in the introduction, long term thinking is important.
2) Tactics - when you are in lower leagues, (almost) always plan on passive because stamina is the main problem. With time, it becomes less of a problem when you award your players leg work skills, but until then you need to save as much as possible. You should be able to win most games on passive but do not let it discourage you if you don't win because you will start winning as you progress.
3) Friendly games - important for several reasons - experience gain, revenue and general indicator of your improvement (in case you challenge teams from similar leagues). Always play on passive.
That's all in part 1, unfortunately I don't too much time at the moment and it is actually tougher than I thought.