Want five essential tips for conquering Championship Manager 17? Of course you do. We may not be too keen on the many micro-transactions in the game (read our Championship Manager 17 review here), but it sure is good for some classic thumb-based team building.
Here are our key UEFA A-Licence learnings from playing the game over the past few weeks.
1. Know your currencies
Championship Manager 17 uses two forms of currency, and learning the difference between the two, and what you can purchase with them, is the key to success. The main currency is CM$ – this is the currency you can buy with real-world money, and can be used to invest in your club's infrastructure, such as training facilities or your youth academy. Alternatively, you can forget all that and use the money saved to boost your transfer kitty.
There's also a third option: CM$ can be converted into Coaching Funds, which can be spent on hiring staff, player development and pre-match drills.
The one thing both currencies have in common is that pretty much everything you can buy with them is expensive, so if you want to avoid dipping into your own pocket as much as possible, it's important to both spend your money carefully, and to maximise the amount of CM$ and Coaching Funds you accrue organically. A good way to do this is to keep an eye on the special challenges that appear from time to time, as these are easily achievable with a little elbow grease, and offer big rewards.
You are awarded money for wins and clean sheets after each match, so it pays to keep things tight and professional as much as possible, and not use a 3-0 scoreline as an excuse to blood your 18-year old centre-back (send them out on loan instead for the same benefits).
2. Become a formation specialist
There are 20 formations to choose from, ranging from your Mike Bassett 4-4-2 to more elaborate continental set-ups. You'll need to invest in formation training to get the best performance out of your players, which is one of the reasons why the smartest move is to stick to two or three complementary formations and build your squad around them.
I went for a solid 4-2-3-1 as my main formation, collapsing into a defensive 4-4-2 during times of need, and expanding into an attacking variant of the 4-2-3-1 when I fancied putting on a show.
It's vital that you avoid playing anyone out of position as much as possible, as it will severely hinder their performance. Their names will appear red if they're a square peg in a round hole, yellow if they can 'do a job', or white if you've nailed it. For this reason it's important to use formations that utilise the same types of player, so you can swap between them in mid-match without having to make too many substitutions. Which leads us nicely into our next tip...
3. Invest in versatile players
Some players can only play in one fixed position, others are more versatile and can be shunted around the line-up without suffering a drop in performance. This is particularly true in midfield, where there are three areas of expertise – defensive, normal or attacking – which speaks to how far up the pitch they like to play. A defensive midfielder will not thrive if given a box-to-box role, and an attacking left winger will struggle if asked to play a more conservative role, even on the left side of the pitch.
In order to give yourself options down the line, it's always preferable to purchase and develop players with a range of talents. I would always go for, say, a 40-rated player who could play AM, AMR and MR over a 43-rated player who can only play AMR, which seems like a crazy move in a game that's such a stickler for player ratings as Championship Manager 17 is.
But remember that you can increase a player's ratings through player development. It's worth having a few pet projects on the go, because ultimately it will work out cheaper than having a bloated squad of one-trick ponies eating up your wage budget. (Half of which won't be able to get into the team, shredding their morale and meaning they're all morose and useless when they finally do get back into the team. But don't worry – there's a fix for that. Skip to the final tip for more).
4. Spend your cash on 'big picture' things
By and large, I would recommend spending your hard-earned (or not-so-hard-earned) CM$ and Coaching Funds on areas that will have a permanent effect. It can be tempting to plough money into pre-match drills, but these are one-shot deals and although effective, won't offer any long-term benefit. (Although it goes without saying that if you're in a play-off final or a six-pointer, you shouldn't be coy about ignoring that advice and giving yourself an extra edge, if you can afford it.)
It is far more prudent to spend in areas that will deliver a permanent impact. It is wise to save up your CM$ to develop your youth academy, as this will drop promising young players right into your squad, and there's nothing wrong with a free wallet, right? Stadium upgrades, too, will pay for themselves, increasing capacity and boosting gate receipts.
I'd be wary about investing too heavily in the training facilities, however. This will give your players a skill boost in a wide range of areas, but it can be more prudent to dip into the player training screen and manually develop them in the areas that are most important to their particular role on the pitch. Medical facilities can probably be given a miss, too – they can decrease the amount of injuries your squad will suffer, but if you've taken my advice and signed up lots of versatile players, your squad should easily withstand the wears and tears of a league campaign.
5. Hire coaches to solve crises
There's one area where it can pay to splash out on a temporary effect – the staff upgrade screen. Here, you can sign backroom staff to deliver stat boosts to your team, but in reality it's prohibitively expensive to sign them for anything longer than 20 weeks. So use them to plaster over gaps in your team while you work out a more sustainable solution. For example, if you can't score you can hire an attacking coach, or a defensive coach if you're leakier than a puppy's backside.
If you're looking to bag a big-profile acquisition to your team, spend on a marketing advisor to raise the profile of your club and make your grotty seaside stadium look a more inviting proposition. Finally, if your team is suffering a morale crisis, you can hire a psychologist to raise everyone's spirits, in the way only those funsters can. If a promotion bid is slowly coming off the rails, it'll the smartest 10,000 Coaching Bucks you'll ever spend.
