Football Tactician 2 ==================== TYPED BY SHARD - N&B The pre-requisite for fully appreciating FT2 is to be in charge of a club. Without any human manager the game will merely run in automatic mode. To become a manager, you'll have to apply for a job, initially with one of the smaller clubs. You can manage any club whose class is equal or below your own rating. As all human managers start with a rating of 3, most clubs in the lower division are accessible straight away. To manage better clubs you will have to win at least 4 matches on the trot. The game will run perfectly without a single human manager. But considering that FT2 is capable of handling up to 46 human managers, there is little point in that. To apply for a job, select the ACTION MENU. Then click on managers. Now choose one of the human managers. Say FRED. Click on JOIN. Now select the club you would like to join. If you are accepted, a logo will appear and confirm your appointment. Have fun and... good luck! For more details about keyboard action press F10. Talking Birds Please refer to Manual. The section entitled who's in charge will explain the mechanics of it. The File Menu. ------------- LAST SEASON will load the fixtures and results from the last complete season. On your disk, this file is recorded as fixt_00.dat Once LAST SEASON is in memory, the current season is put on hold. Only friendly matches may now be played. Many functions will be disabled: save, new, kick-off, top scorers, etc are no longer available. The cursor will also change. We are now in REVIEW MODE. The whole idea of loading an old season whether from the LAST SEASON or from the LOAD SEASON boxes is to quickly view past results, maybe to check how you did against your next opponents. The obvious path to follow, in this mode, in to click on TABLES, then click on SELECT ANY WEEK. Full records will now be at your fingertips. Another useful feature is to load any logo in, click on it, and select FIXTURE LIST. You will be presented with the full history of that particular team during the season under review. Once in 'REVIEW MODE', the LAST SEASON box will now say RESUME. You have to click on RESUME if you want to exit REVIEW MODE and carry on with the default mode. The next box in this FILE MENU is SAVE. If you want to save your records click on this one at any time during the championship, except at the very end of the very last day, when it will instead appear as NEW SEASON. You'll have to click on NEW SEASON to save the ENTIRE championship for posterity. It will always be saved as FIXT_00.DAT. All fixtures will then be reset and a new season may commence with bank balances, skill levels and squads left unchanged. SAVE does a complete save of all squad and club records, replay list and results so far. But the week pointer will remain as it is. Whenever you click on SAVE, do make sure that your disk is NOT protected The next entry is NEW. This is an uncompromising feature. Everything gets reset to the original standard. You are in effect overwriting your records with the default files always held on disk. Needless to say full confirmation will be asked for and you will have to answer with the keyboard only. EDITOR , the next entry, gives you access to all 920 players. The names can be changed but skills and valuations require a password. LOAD SEASON is similar to LAST SEASON except that here you may choose which particular season you want to load: 0 is the one just gone. You may retrieve up to 21 seasons. Once this feature is active, you are in REVIEW MODE again, as confirmed by the rectangular cursor. A new box will now appear just underneath: SAVE AS. The season you have just loaded may be re-saved under any name from 1 to 20. Make sure you do not overwrite a season that you were particularly proud of. PROMOTIONS is only active during the early part of the season. It will re-arrange the two division as per entries shown under HONOURS. As all master files will be changed use with care. This covers all the options under the FILE menu. The Action Menu. --------------- VIEW CLUBS. This will show all clubs in your division together with their managers humans or otherwise. MANAGERS is a list of 46 ready-made user names. These are fully editable and have individual ratings according to their achievements. Money earned by these managers is also shown as well as their records. SELECT CLUB is one of the most used options in this game. You have to select a club in order to examine its squad and make the selection and strategic decisions that will win or lose a match. REPLAY is one of many options UNIQUE to Football Tactician. It gives access to the matches played last saturday in both divisions. Ideal to analyse your last game and see what went right (or wrong) and also to see how the other teams performed. CLASSICS is another replay facility except that here only selected golden matches are shown. In order to store a famous match in the classic section you need to call the archive routine further down. KICK OFF gets the ball rolling! All matches will be played in turn. Those involving no user-managers will have their result flashed for two seconds. The others will be played in full. First the relevant logos will be fetched from memory, then the match will start at a speed defined by the option menu. You'll have access to the two logos where substitions, marking, and change of tactics may be made. If you want to change the clock speed, press ENTER, - or + on the keypad. All matches will be played in a totally realistic way, whether they are shown or not. Computer opponents will organise their squads, change tactics or make substitutions according to the run of the play. KICK OFF may also be activated by clicking on the centre circle. Equally, once all the week's events have been reported, KICK OFF will occur automatically. Friendlies are played by getting two logos in the windows and hitting F. If any of the two logos showing is a user-manager, the match will be reported in full, otherwise only the result will show. Even so, the match will have been recorded . To replay it, press R on the keyboard ARCHIVE shows the state of the three recording banks. If you click on any of the 36 matches, the mouse will jump to the permanent section where up to five matches may be stored for good. VIEW REFS will list all 88 referees in the league together with their toughness record. Nine is deadly. One is a softy. This covers all the options under the ACTION menu. The TABLES Menu. ---------------- TABLES In STANDARD mode, this box may be clicked to reveal a full division table except when the season hasn't started yet. In REVIEW mode, when the cursor is rectangular, this option is inactive, but league tables are then called from the SELECT WEEK option further down. FIXTURES Next week's fixtures are stored here. RESULTS Last week's results are shown here. TRANSFERS This is a complete list of all the players on the transfer list. Although the players ratings are shown the list does not reveal whether they are injured, suspended or with a low morale. Buying a player with rating of 100 may result in its new rating jumping to 107 simply because his old morale was low. To avoid buying a player with a long suspension or some bad injury, you are recommended to check his club logo first. This transfer list changes constantly. Computer players may put a player on the transfer list and remove him a few weeks later. Squad levels are not allowed to drop below 17. You'll find that if a squad is too depleted, a club will go into the transfer market automatically. TOP SCORERS This is where your players should show up if you're doing well in the league. SELECT ANY WEEK. A very useful option. You may view any week in the season. If you choose a week already played, you will see the results and the ful table for that particular week. If you choose a week not played yet, only the fixtures will appear. This feature is active in both STANDARD mode and REVIEW mode. HONOURS shows the major winners from the last completed season. It shows at a glance who will be promoted and relegated should you decide to call the promotion routine. THE CUPS All local and european cup entries are shown here. EC mini-leagues now operational. Cup draws vary from season to season. EURO POOL Players may be bought from this pool. Equally you may dispose of your unwanted players by giving them a free transfer. This covers all the options under the TABLES menu. The OPTIONS Menu. ----------------- Most boxes under this menu are of the toggable type: ie they merely switch certain conditions on or off. Default settings will be saved to disk automatically. The NEWS option allows you to determine the amount of mid-week activity. Between eight and twenty four events including possible transfers will take place depending on the setting. SPEED The speed of match action is either slow, in which case each ball contest takes about two seconds, or normal, which lasts half a second, or fast which lasts 1/50th of a second. The effective duration of the action depends not only on this setting but on how many illustrations appear during the match. Offside flags, penalties, etc.. take a while to be displayed and slow things down a bit. You will find that intervening with the mouse during a match set to fast is not that easy. Press - on the keypad (repeatedly if necessary) to slow things down, then click on the logos. HIGHLIGHTS is another variable affecting the way a reported match will look. The default mode is HIGHLIGHTS which will report all major events: goals, shots, fouls, corners, penalties, injuries and tactics changes. When set to FULL COMMENTARY, the players names will be reported all the time. Home players will be on the left Away players on the right. The player actually controlling the ball is shown in blue. The other setting is GOALS ONLY which will only report the goals scored, who scored them and when. TRANSFERS amongst computer teams may either be automatic or off. You should remember that if automatic transfers are allowed, a great deal of player movement will take place, particularly if you have chosen the full weekly NEWS option. To reduce excessive player migration, you may either select BRIEF week events or turn TRANSFERS off periodically. Teams managed by user players will not embark on automatic transfers unless you allow your squad to be unduly depleted. This covers the option menu. The LOGO Menu. -------------- The LOGO menu may be accessed both during the week and during a match. Some functions will be active all the time, others will be specific to either of these possibilities. SELECT gives you access to your squad (or to the opponent's squad!) During the week, all players can be reached and reshuffled (unless injured or suspended). During a match, only the first eleven may be reshuffled, and up to two substitutes may be brought on. Click on the player's name to activate a swap with another player. Some players have variable roles and may be switched from midfield to attack or midfield to defence. Or they may be played as wingers, or sweepers... Click on these columns to change the players roles. If you start a match with two goalies, or none, the program will rectify this anomaly automatically. BUY allows you to view the transfer list and buy a player, funds permitting. You can have up to 20 players in your squad. APPROACH allows you to approach any player from any club. There are some costs involved. And the player's market value will probably go up. There is no guarantee that the player will join you. You may have to approach him several times. STRATEGY. You have a choice a eight different strategies, each one with its own merit (and drawback). Consult your manual. The strategies are: Normal, off-side trap, high crosses, quick counters, through balls, steady build-up, sweeper system and break rhythm. Going for through balls for instance is only of value if you have one or two real attackers up front (ATT) with an above-average speed. On the other hand, they may be caught offside a few times... TACTICS have a significant bearing on the way the match progresses. Rough playing will knock the opposition but land you a few yellow cards. Falling in the box may earn the odd penalty, but also a booking and loss of possession. Again, see your manual. FORMATION is a non-accessible box. It merely confirms the current set-up NEXT WEEK not only informs you of your next opponents, but clicking on it, will load their logo and squad. Access to the opponents' squad will be allowed at any time, but, in match mode you will not be able to interfere with it. SELL allows you to put any of your players on the transfer list. Expect morale to drop when you try to sell a player. To remove a player from the transfer list, you'll have to click on UNLIST. INFO gives you historical information on your club. FINANCIAL displays the current bank balance and the various trading accounts. You will still be allowed to play if you go in the red, but purchases will be denied FIXTURE LIST is a useful option showing the entire season at a glance, with results for matches played. You can not only examine your own list, but that of any club in your division. In MATCH mode, some of the above options will be disabled , but one new one will appear: MARK OPPONENT. Marking an opponent will severely reduce his performance, but it will be at the expense of your overall rating. End of LOGO options The LOGO Menu. -------------- The LOGO menu may be accessed both during the week and during a match. Some functions will be active all the time, others will be specific to either of these possibilities. SELECT gives you access to your squad (or to the opponent's squad!) During the week, all players can be reached and reshuffled (unless injured or suspended). During a match, only the first eleven may be reshuffled, and up to two substitutes may be brought on. Click on the player's name to activate a swap with another player. Some players have variable roles and may be switched from midfield to attack or midfield to defence. Or they may be played as wingers, or sweepers... Click on these columns to change the players roles. If you start a match with two goalies, or none, the program will rectify this anomaly automatically. BUY allows you to view the transfer list and buy a player, funds permitting. You can have up to 20 players in your squad. APPROACH allows you to approach any player from any club. There are some costs involved. And the player's market value will probably go up. There is no guarantee that the player will join you. You may have to approach him several times. STRATEGY. You have a choice a eight different strategies, each one with its own merit (and drawback). Consult your manual. The strategies are: Normal, off-side trap, high crosses, quick counters, through balls, steady build-up, sweeper system and break rhythm. Going for through balls for instance is only of value if you have one or two real attackers up front (ATT) with an above-average speed. On the other hand, they may be caught offside a few times... TACTICS have a significant bearing on the way the match progresses. Rough playing will knock the opposition but land you a few yellow cards. Falling in the box may earn the odd penalty, but also a booking and loss of possession. Again, see your manual. FORMATION is a non-accessible box. It merely confirms the current set-up NEXT WEEK not only informs you of your next opponents, but clicking on it, will load their logo and squad. Access to the opponents' squad will be allowed at any time, but, in match mode you will not be able to interfere with it. SELL allows you to put any of your players on the transfer list. Expect morale to drop when you try to sell a player. To remove a player from the transfer list, you'll have to click on UNLIST. INFO gives you historical information on your club. FINANCIAL displays the current bank balance and the various trading accounts. You will still be allowed to play if you go in the red, but purchases will be denied FIXTURE LIST is a useful option showing the entire season at a glance, with results for matches played. You can not only examine your own list, but that of any club in your division. In MATCH mode, some of the above options will be disabled , but one new one will appear: MARK OPPONENT. Marking an opponent will severely reduce his performance, but it will be at the expense of your overall rating. End of LOGO options The LOGO Menu. -------------- The LOGO menu may be accessed both during the week and during a match. Some functions will be active all the time, others will be specific to either of these possibilities. SELECT gives you access to your squad (or to the opponent's squad!) During the week, all players can be reached and reshuffled (unless injured or suspended). During a match, only the first eleven may be reshuffled, and up to two substitutes may be brought on. Click on the player's name to activate a swap with another player. Some players have variable roles and may be switched from midfield to attack or midfield to defence. Or they may be played as wingers, or sweepers... Click on the RIGHT ROLE to activate the changes. The left role is the default position and is not accessible. If you start a match with two goalies, or none, the program will rectify this anomaly automatically. BUY allows you to view the transfer list and buy a player, funds permitting. You can have up to 20 players in your squad. APPROACH allows you to approach any player from any club. There are some costs involved. And the player's market value will probably go up. There is no guarantee that the player will join you. You may have to approach him several times. STRATEGY. You have a choice a eight different strategies, each one with its own merit (and drawback). Consult your manual. The strategies are: Normal, off-side trap, high crosses, quick counters, through balls, steady build-up, sweeper system and break rythm. Going for through balls for instance is only of value if you have one or two real attackers up front (ATT) with an above-average speed. On the other hand, they may be caught offside a few times... TACTICS have a significant bearing on the way the match progresses. Rough playing will knock the opposition but land you a few yellow cards. Falling in the box may earn the odd penalty, but also a booking and loss of possession. Again, see your manual. FORMATION is a non-accessible box. It merely confirms the current set-up NEXT WEEK not only informs you of your next opponents, but clicking on it, will load their logo and squad. Access to the opponents' squad will be allowed at any time, but, in match mode you will not be able to interfere with it. SELL allows you to put any of your players on the transfer list. Expect morale to drop when you try to sell a player. To remove a player from the transfer list, you'll have to click on UNLIST. INFO gives you historical information on your club. FINANCIAL displays the current bank balance and the various trading accounts. You will still be allowed to play if you go in the red, but purchases will be denied FIXTURE LIST is a useful option showing the entire season at a glance, with results for matches played. You can not only examine your own list, but that of any club in your division. In MATCH mode, some of the above options will be disabled , but one new one will appear: MARK OPPONENT. Marking an opponent will severely reduce his performance, but it will be at the expense of your overall rating. ----------------------------------END------------------------------------