Odd game PTF! I managed Saints through to 2022 and had some great talents, PL standard for sure. Including a 17 year old valued at £9m who I sent to Leeds in the NPC aged 16. Returned with 43 apps - 36 goals.
I was pretty lucky with academy products had a fair few good ones! If you google Youth Academys in fm2012, then ours get mentioned a lot be seasoned "FMers" as a good one.
Best academies for me for talents were Stuttgart, Athletic and for some reason a Algerian club (can't remember the name). Got one youth player for <£50k from there and he turned out to be worth 9.5 million after a season at my feeder club hahaha!
I got Shaw in my first team 4-5 seasons in, he was labelled 'could be new Ashley Cole', is currently on the England Bench behind Jack Robinson, and is putting average ratings of 7.2. If you give him lots of game time, and get lucky with starting base stats (mine had 16+ for work rate, team work and natural fitness) so he had a good start, will develop in to a world class left back.
Athletic are amazing, but then you wouldn't expect anything less from a club who can't sign anyone by Basques.
They just can't fix that awful 3D engine.Just like FIFA with their awful crowds. FM2013 still looks pretty much the same as 11 and 12 and other versions.Still a great game though.
I swore to myself that I would complete the "Pentagon Challenge" (win the Champions League on every continent) on FM12 before FM13 came out. So far I have won none of them. This is going to be hard work.
I see FM has micro transactions now, pay real cash to get a bigger transfer budget etc (so the rumours say).
Fist thing i always do with any footie manager team. Check out my back room staff, if any aren't up to scratch I let them go. Hire any staff that I need, always making sure my youth team coaches are the best I can get comfortably within budget. Continuously badger the boardroom to improve training facilities and youth academy. Always make the most of freebies and loans. Since FM 2007, I have always make sure i don't spend much. (strange I know for a Pompey fan). Got Bournemouth promoted to the prem. Spent 500k to 3 players. The rest were from academy of loan or a free. My 2 top scorers were free's. I think we can all agree it will most likely be awesome and even more addictive.
I'm in the middle of a Pompey game on FM12. Fair to say it's a lot of fun. Keeping them up with the -10 then revamping the summer after. Ricardo Rocha's scored 12 goals for me this season
Unfortunately, this is how it's going to be with a lot of games if so many people are going to be pirating the games instead of buying them. Prices of PC games may go down, but we'll be charged for additional content. The quality of many games will probably be compromised as developers will want to release half of the content in expansion packs instead of just including it all in the original release. Thankfully, the FM series has maintained its quality thus far, and you can always get it bloody cheap when it goes on the Steam sale.
Some people may pirate them but CM/FM is one of the best-selling franchises ever, and must be be far cheaper to develop than the likes of Skyrim and other 3D open-world type games, they're not exactly struggling financially. But of course this is the way things are going. I guess at least it's not integral to the game to buy extra funds or whatever, but I hope they're not limiting the editor so they can charge for things you could do anyway if you wanted to.
It's worth adding, these unlockables such as "boosted budget" and "no sacking allowed" can also be won in game, as well as bought. If you stay at a club for ten years, you unlock the "no sacking" unlockable which you can use in games to give yourself as much time as you want.