Lower League Tactics

by Mark, Jan 17, 2021

I thought I would look to see how the 3 top tactics here go in all the English Leagues below EPL. I have loaded all the English and UK leagues only in a large database and custom added all UK region players. I then saved and looked at the top and worst ranked sides in each league. I am going to test each tactic 4 times at each level and compare the outcomes to try and see which tactic is best for lower ranked sides. I will post results here in the next few days

RESULTS





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Here are the selected teams we are testing:

League    High    Low
Van South    Ebbsfleet    St Albans
Van North    Fylde    Leamington
Van National    Notts Co    Weymouth
League 2    Salford    Leyton Orient
League 1    Charlton    Accrington
Champ    Norwich    Wycombe

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great idea! Looking forward to see first results

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The tactics are Viola V1, ZaZ Blue 2.0 and Phoenix v3.0. No transfers selected, which I think disadvantages the tactics but keeps it even, so I would expect the results to be less than what you could do through recruiting decent players. I took default manager stats. Just running test 5 so test 6 should be finished in around an hour and that will be halfway through. Will post something after that run. Final 6 tests and final results might be a day or two.

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I have split the tests between 2 groupings - Van South, L2 and Champ/ Van North, Van National and L1. So halfway through it is hard to compare. Phoenix is the only tactic so far to span both groups. So probably unfair to compare them at this stage. Observations to date: ZaZ does look very strong for lower leagues especially those teams that are not favored. 6 of their 10 test groups have had both sides in the top 4 and twice the bottom ranked side has finished in front of the top ranked side. Viola seems to be behind with the lower ranked side always substantially behind in the finish order. Still waiting for test 6 to finish so probably done for tonight.

As it stands:

ZaZ Blue 2.0
Ave Pts 1.982
Top Rk sides 2.172
Low Rk sides 1.792
Non League sides 2.081

Phoenix v3.0
Ave Pts 1.782
Top Rk sides 1.977
Low Rk sides 1.588
Non League sides 1.762

Viola V1
Ave Pts 1.722
Top Rk sides 2.011
Low Rk sides 1.432
Non League sides 1.630

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Go, Blue 2.0, go!

P.S.: Can you please explain what the stats mean? What are they and how to read it? Is higher or lower better in each of them? (P.S.2: I believe it's average points with top team and low team, but no idea what non league sides mean.)

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@ZaZ All the numbers are average points per game. The top ranked sides and low ranked sides were determined using FM Scout when the game was first saved. So low ranked sides were expected to be relegated and top ranked sides to be promoted. Non League sides are Vanarama leagues. Hope that helps

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Mark said: @ZaZ All the numbers are average points per game. The top ranked sides and low ranked sides were determined using FM Scout when the game was first saved. So low ranked sides were expected to be relegated and top ranked sides to be promoted. Non League sides are Vanarama leagues. Hope that helps

Those are awesome results, then. I suppose it will get more even when all tactics are tested against all sets of tests. I still expect Blue 2.0 to have an edge, though.

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OK, the results are in. Just under 1800 games for each tactic.

Points per match by league using top ranked and lowest ranked sides:



I think ZaZ Blue 2.0 is a clear winner for lower league management.

Points per match by club:



Weymouth are a bit of an anomaly. I feel inclined to take the challenge and try and win something with them on my next save using ZaZ Blue 2.0.

ZaZ Blue 2.0 Summary results and individual test results:



Phoenix v3.0 Summary results and individual test results:



Viola V1 Summary results and individual test results:

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Good jobs. Very dedicated in your work !

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Mark said: OK, the results are in. Just under 1800 games for each tactic.

Points per match by league using top ranked and lowest ranked sides:



I think ZaZ Blue 2.0 is a clear winner for lower league management.



Good work, Mark.

But when you look at your points per match table I don't think you can determine which tactic is a clear winner because there's like a 3.5% between the tactics and probably, if you remove all random factors like fm-arena does in its testing then you'll get less than a 1.5% difference between the tactic when you look at the points per watch and that's why all three tactics are rated 7.0 because a 1.5% difference is almost nothing  :)

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An important thing worth noting is that ZaZ Blue 2.0 produced 18 champions from the 40 seasons across all leagues including one for a lowest ranked side. This is without buying any players. Very impressive. Also worth noting that Phoenix wasnt far behind and performed better with some of the lower ranked teams. Viola was a bit behind the other 2 tactics but mainly with underdog teams. Viola was still very competitive though.

Hope this has helped people who play the lower leagues. It certainly will inform my approach going forward.  A special thanks to the people that develop the tactics, @ZaZ @Egraam and @Magician.

I will have more of a look through the results over the next few days and add observations here.

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Mark said: OK, the results are in. Just under 1800 games for each tactic.

Points per match by league using top ranked and lowest ranked sides:



I think ZaZ Blue 2.0 is a clear winner for lower league management.

Points per match by club:



Weymouth are a bit of an anomaly. I feel inclined to take the challenge and try and win something with them on my next save using ZaZ Blue 2.0.

ZaZ Blue 2.0 Summary results and individual test results:



Phoenix v3.0 Summary results and individual test results:



Viola V1 Summary results and individual test results:



Probably Weymouth is much worse compared to other teams in the League, like they have stats of non-league competing with professionals. I will also try to play them since it seems to be hard mode.

About the results, first I want to thank you for the effort. It's always nice to have people testing tactics, but you brought it to another level with such a thoughtful report. The methodology was also sound, which makes me believe the results are as close as possible to what would happen to the average player. I am also happy to see Blue 2.0 winning, obviously, since it won't be tested here and has a high chance to not be tested on fm-base anytime soon. I kinda needed to know how it performs, because I always felt the better play style could be just because higher tempo is more enjoyable to watch.

Other than Weymouth, the worst position for Blue 2.0 was an 8th place. It also won che championship 18 out of 20 times, getting in promotion range 28 out of 40 times. For comparison, Phoenix won only 11 times and got in promotion range 26 times, very similar to Viola. Blue 1.0 would also fall in that range, probably, since the three have very similar performance.

Good job there!

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ZaZ said: Other than Weymouth, the worst position for Blue 2.0 was an 8th place. It also won che championship 18 out of 20 times, getting in promotion range 28 out of 40 times. For comparison, Phoenix won only 11 times and got in promotion range 26 times, very similar to Viola. Blue 1.0 would also fall in that range, probably, since the three have very similar performance.

Mark said: An important thing worth noting is that ZaZ Blue 2.0 produced 18 champions from the 40 seasons across all leagues including one for a lowest ranked side. This is without buying any players. Very impressive.

Only the points per match are important and the final standing means nothing because the standing  depends on the performance of the AI teams which can greatly vary and depends on many random factors so in one test some of AI managers can do very good and in other test they might do poor.

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Milakus said: Good work, Mark.

But when you look at your points per match table I don't think you can determine which tactic is a clear winner because there's like a 3.5% between the tactics and probably, if you remove all random factors like fm-arena does in its testing then you'll get less than a 1.5% difference between the tactic when you look at the points per watch and that's why all three tactics are rated 7.0 because a 1.5% difference is almost nothing  :)


He tested Blue 2.0, which is better than original Blue. That tactic didn't get selected for tests here.

@Mark , can you make a compilation of each teams average attributes, from team report? It would be interesting to know the first touch, determination and other attributes to find some correlation.

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Mark said: An important thing worth noting is that ZaZ Blue 2.0 produced 18 champions from the 40 seasons across all leagues including one for a lowest ranked side. This is without buying any players. Very impressive. Also worth noting that Phoenix wasnt far behind and performed better with some of the lower ranked teams. Viola was a bit behind the other 2 tactics but mainly with underdog teams. Viola was still very competitive though.

As @Milakus rightly said the standing is a meaningless stat and only the points per match matters

Here's a good example from real life

In the season 2018-19 Liverpool got 97 points and it wasn't enough to win the title because Man City was on fire too and got 98 pts at the end



But in season Leicester City won the league with only 81 points because other teams in the league played very poorly in that season



so as you can see the standing is a quite irrelevant stat when it comes comparing tactics, the points per match is the only what matters

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Milakus said: Only the points per match are important and the final standing means nothing because the standing  depends on the performance of the AI teams which can greatly vary and depends on many random factors so in one test some of AI managers can do very good and in other test they might do poor.

The comparison was made using points per match. The number of titles was just an interesting fact. I believe extra data is always useful.

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ZaZ said: The number of titles was just an interesting fact. I believe extra data is always useful.

I agree, having extra data doesn't hurt and it might be interesting to see :) but the points per match is the only stat that should be looked at when you compare tactics

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I dont disagree with your points about points per match being the most important stat @Nikko and @Milakus. This is why it is the main stat I have used in the summary results. However, I think winning the league means you had the best side that year in that league, so I think it is a supplementary indicator.

In terms of the variables and random factors, I think that the extent of the testing would reduce these somewhat. The higher the number of games played the lower the random impacts will be. For example. 1800 games testing should provide a much better picture than say 150 games.

I love FM Arena. The concept is brilliant and value to the FM community is huge. However I have often thought that by using teams with talent at the levels of EPL and Champions leagues, the testing doesnt always assist us lower league players. And I certainly like that there are differing views put forward on the forums.

Having said all that, I did this for fun and dont claim it to be definitive. Take what you want from what I have produced. I play the lowest tier in each save and will certainly be favoring ZaZ Blue 2.0 until the next major update from SI.

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Mark said: I dont disagree with your points about points per match being the most important stat @Nikko and @Milakus. This is why it is the main stat I have used in the summary results. However, I think winning the league means you had the best side that year in that league, so I think it is a supplementary indicator.

In terms of the variables and random factors, I think that the extent of the testing would reduce these somewhat. The higher the number of games played the lower the random impacts will be. For example. 1800 games testing should provide a much better picture than say 150 games.

I love FM Arena. The concept is brilliant and value to the FM community is huge. However I have often thought that by using teams with talent at the levels of EPL and Champions leagues, the testing doesnt always assist us lower league players. And I certainly like that there are differing views put forward on the forums.

Having said all that, I did this for fun and dont claim it to be definitive. Take what you want from what I have produced. I play the lowest tier in each save and will certainly be favoring ZaZ Blue 2.0 until the next major update from SI.


There are also some factors that normal tests from here or fm-base won't account, like pressure added by a title run, injury of key players leaving no options for positions, as well as exhaustion for tight schedule. Those factors induce player mistakes, which can show which tactics are more tolerant to errors. I believe it's a very realistic scenario of what people encounter in practice, instead of always having players in the best shape to minimize their variation. It's just normal for players to oscillate during a season, and the high number of tests make up for the unwanted randomness.

I don't think he claims his results to be absolute, it's just a different approach, which might lead to different results. He is just considering the tactics in less ideal conditions.

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Mark said: I think ZaZ Blue 2.0 is a clear winner for lower league management

@Mark, if you'd ask me then I wouldn't say there's a clear winner




ZaZ Blue 2.0 tactic: Avg. points per game = 1.916

Phoenix 3.0 tactic: Avg. points per game = 1.849

The difference in PPG is less than 3.5%

I guess you tested without eliminating RNG factors like in the fm-arena testing, I mean freezing the morale and conditions and so on. In the fm-arena testing Phoenix tactic has 2.114 PPG and Blue tactic has 2.092 PPG so in fm-arena testing the difference in PPG is less than 1.1% and I'm sure if you were eliminating RNG then you also had like a 1.1% difference in PPG and you really can't say that there's a clear winner when the difference is less than 1.1% :)

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Poacher said: @Mark, if you'd ask me then I wouldn't say there's a clear winner




ZaZ Blue 2.0 tactic: Avg. points per game = 1.916

Phoenix 3.0 tactic: Avg. points per game = 1.849

The difference in PPG is less than 3.5%

I guess you tested without eliminating RNG factors like in the fm-arena testing, I mean freezing the morale and conditions and so on. In the fm-arena testing Phoenix tactic has 2.114 PPG and Blue tactic has 2.092 PPG so in fm-arena testing the difference in PPG is less than 1.1% and I'm sure if you were eliminating RNG then you also had like a 1.1% difference in PPG and you really can't say that there's a clear winner when the difference is less than 1.1% :)


Blue 2.0 wasn't selected for testing in fm-arena. It doesn't appear in the table.

Also, the difference of 0.08 points per match is basically the difference between a 7.0 and a 6.8 tactic here, so it shouldn't be considered negligible.

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ZaZ said: Blue 2.0 wasn't selected for testing. It doesn't appear in the table.

IMHO, the changes between Blue 2.0 and Blue 1.0 would make a 1% difference at the most :)

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I am loving that this has generated so much discussion. Clearly is an area of interest for people.

@ZaZ I will look at player attributes in the next few days to see if there is any correlation to the results.

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ZaZ said: Also, the difference of 0.08 points per match is basically the difference between a 7.0 and a 6.8 tactic here, so it shouldn't be considered negligible.

That's true... but the difference between 7.0 rating and 6.8 rating is about 2.9% which means a 7.0 tactic is about only 2.9% more effective than a 6.8 tactic

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Poacher said: IMHO, the changes between Blue 2.0 and Blue 1.0 would make a 1% difference at the most :)

Maybe you are right. I am just saying that everyone that tested both prefer 2.0, since it gets better results. But it could very well perform worse in some test, for specific conditions. I would also say it's very hard to optimize a tactic when it's too close to the top, so you can't just minimize a 1% improvement as if it's something trivial to achieve.

P.S.: I don't understand why people are minimizing his results. They  don't change any of the results from fm-arena, as they are not comparable. They use different methodologies and are meant for different purposes.

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ZaZ said: P.S.: I don't understand why people are minimizing his results. They  don't change any of the results from fm-arena, as they are not comparable. They use different methodologies and are meant for different purposes.

Nobody's minimizing anything. I see people just express their opinions on the subject, I think a quite normal thing...

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Poacher said: @Mark, if you'd ask me then I wouldn't say there's a clear winner




ZaZ Blue 2.0 tactic: Avg. points per game = 1.916

Phoenix 3.0 tactic: Avg. points per game = 1.849

The difference in PPG is less than 3.5%

I guess you tested without eliminating RNG factors like in the fm-arena testing, I mean freezing the morale and conditions and so on. In the fm-arena testing Phoenix tactic has 2.114 PPG and Blue tactic has 2.092 PPG so in fm-arena testing the difference in PPG is less than 1.1% and I'm sure if you were eliminating RNG then you also had like a 1.1% difference in PPG and you really can't say that there's a clear winner when the difference is less than 1.1% :)


Just an observation, but you cant average the numbers from that table because they played different numbers of games in each league. The real average points per game are in the summary and details tables for each tactic.

ZaZ Blue 2.0 is 1.905269058
Phoenix V3.0 is 1.832399103
Viola V1 is 1.755605381

Using these figures the overall percentage differences are as follows:

ZaZ Blue 2.0 is 3.977% higher than Phoenix V3.0 and 8.525% higher than Viola V1.
Phoenix V3.0 is 4.374% higher than Viola V1

All these are above your 3.5% threshold.

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Rince said: Nobody's minimizing anything. I see people just express their opinions on the subject, I think a quite normal thing...

I am just saying that a difference of 4% (1.905/1.832) in 1800 matches is statistically relevant. We are talking about achieving 3-4 more points on average in every season, which can have even more impact in cups. For the conditions he tested, Blue 2.0 can be considered a clear winner. That doesn't mean it will be better in any conditions. Maybe Phoenix or Voila are better with stronger teams, or freezing stats, but that wasn't the objective of his tests.

For me, it would be really interesting if he had also tested Blue 1.0, or also tested on Premier League, but I can't ask him to do even more work after that.

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Mark said: ZaZ Blue 2.0 is 3.977% higher than Phoenix V3.0 and 8.525% higher than Viola V1.
Phoenix V3.0 is 4.374% higher than Viola V1

All these are above your 3.5% threshold.


For me that proves that you can't test tactics by just plugging them and pushing "On Holiday" button. I understand why people tend to test tactics this way because it the simplest way to test, it doesn't require any skill or any efforts but it also gives an inaccurate result even after 1600 matches because the impact of random factors is very significant in this case, any injuries of the key players in your team or any injuries of the key players in the opposition team have a great impact on the result and they can turn everything apart.

Also, the assistant manager is responsible for managing the morale, picking the starting eleven for the tactic but it's been proven many times that even the best assistant manager is very poor at piking the team for many different tactics and he isn't capable managing any morale issue so it's like play roulette.

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