Are the bad AI squad building and regen development fixed in FM2019?

[Saitama Sensei]

I'm thinking of getting FM19, I have all FM's from prior years, but gave up because I got fed up with how bad the AI clubs are at building squads.

One of the biggest issues is AI clubs constantly badly underbidding for players I have no reason or desire to sell. Usually bids come in for half their value, and I have to "negotiate" (trick AI) into bidding higher and higher till I maybe get 1x their value. Whereas if I want a similar player from an AI club usually they ask for 4x their value.

And if I have a player who is absolute quality (high CA/PA) who I am not actively looking to sell as he's a star player, but who I don't mind selling if I get a Gareth Bale, Coutinho or Mbappe type of offer for which will allow me to rebuild the squad, the AI just never bids anything more than 1.5x their value. So they'll offer £70m for a player valued at £50m. Whereas AI clubs will refuse to sell a £50m star player for less than 2-3x the price, sometimes even more.

I did a few saves in FM15, 17, 18, where I went on holiday for 20 years and left multiple active leagues running, and after 20 years I looked back at the worldwide transfer history to see what the top teams did in the AI to AI transfer market and what resulting squads they had. I saw the same story everywhere, clubs like Real Madrid, Barca, Juve, Bayern, etc, just didn't use their budgets effectively or aggressively, they constantly bought average players for £10m-£20m, on rare occassions they'd spend up to £40m--£50m, and maybe one in a blue moon they'd go over £60m (and by this I mean maybe 1-2 AI transfers over £60m in 20 seasons). In the end they all had very average squads. Only Man City and PSG would constantly buy lots of £30m+ players. And when I looked at their remaining transfer budgets using the editor tools, I'd see these top clubs have £150m-£250m budgets not being spent and lots of wage budget remaining.

Added to the transfer market woes, I also found the AI wasn't particularly good at developing regens. I mean you would get some fantastically talented regens at the top clubs every so often, but the AI wouldn't turn them into well rounded players, just players with some stats that are insane and all other stats being terrible.

All of this is why the game gets easier over the long term (AI clubs don't continuously go for the star players they need), because AI teams get weaker over time.

So my question behind all of this is, has this finally changed in FM2019, or is it still the same?

[Snorks]

Download the Demo?

[Fiddle Gastro]

Originally posted by Snorks:

Download the Demo?

Yeah, cause one season's worth of gameplay epitomises a long-term save.

Another useless solution from Snorks.

[Fiddle Gastro]

Originally posted by Douglas Quaid:

I'm thinking of getting FM19, I have all FM's from prior years, but gave up because I got fed up with how bad the AI clubs are at building squads.

One of the biggest issues is AI clubs constantly badly underbidding for players I have no reason or desire to sell. Usually bids come in for half their value, and I have to "negotiate" (trick AI) into bidding higher and higher till I maybe get 1x their value. Whereas if I want a similar player from an AI club usually they ask for 4x their value.

And if I have a player who is absolute quality (high CA/PA) who I am not actively looking to sell as he's a star player, but who I don't mind selling if I get a Gareth Bale, Coutinho or Mbappe type of offer for which will allow me to rebuild the squad, the AI just never bids anything more than 1.5x their value. So they'll offer £70m for a player valued at £50m. Whereas AI clubs will refuse to sell a £50m star player for less than 2-3x the price, sometimes even more.

I did a few saves in FM15, 17, 18, where I went on holiday for 20 years and left multiple active leagues running, and after 20 years I looked back at the worldwide transfer history to see what the top teams did in the AI to AI transfer market and what resulting squads they had. I saw the same story everywhere, clubs like Real Madrid, Barca, Juve, Bayern, etc, just didn't use their budgets effectively or aggressively, they constantly bought average players for £10m-£20m, on rare occassions they'd spend up to £40m--£50m, and maybe one in a blue moon they'd go over £60m (and by this I mean maybe 1-2 AI transfers over £60m in 20 seasons). In the end they all had very average squads. Only Man City and PSG would constantly buy lots of £30m+ players. And when I looked at their remaining transfer budgets using the editor tools, I'd see these top clubs have £150m-£250m budgets not being spent and lots of wage budget remaining.

Added to the transfer market woes, I also found the AI wasn't particularly good at developing regens. I mean you would get some fantastically talented regens at the top clubs every so often, but the AI wouldn't turn them into well rounded players, just players with some stats that are insane and all other stats being terrible.

All of this is why the game gets easier over the long term (AI clubs don't continuously go for the star players they need), because AI teams get weaker over time.

So my question behind all of this is, has this finally changed in FM2019, or is it still the same?

Yes, the AI squad building is still screwy. The AI also doesn't value match sharpness, as it always comes into a season underdone and fades out late.

If you play a save reliant on your Director of Football hiring and signing, you'll largely be denied players at particular positions for seasons at a time. Occasionally they'll pluck a gem from their bunghole.

Personally, I always start in the lower leagues so I have to add a caveat that I haven't seen this in effect in England, Spain, Germany, Italy etc.

[fAtAl-e]

After many many hours of play I can confirm that the AI in FM2019 is still very bad.
This is something you will only find out in long saves.

They could easily fix it. If they can't create a challenging AI than they should create a balancing script that will spawn great regens to competitive teams to improve the competition over time.

[Midgard]

Yes, the AI managers are bad in each and every way. But it´s you as the player, and in FM2019 worse than ever before, that have to be the teams wizard, babysitter and winner.

Over and over you can lose to teams that are inferior to yours simply because if you don´t do everything right, you lose the matches.

I just lost the cup final with the clearly better team, my team played the match better in all areas but it still went to a penalty decision, and of course the other team still had to snatch the cup trophy before my eyes on a one goal more scored simply because it´s so exciting to see the other team get the better out of yours if you´re not 10 times better then the other one.

A suggestion; if you buy it and set your manager profile to one that´s not that much experienced, let your assistant manager handle the matches because if you yourself coach in them the game is so tipped over to the other teams favor so you´ll win more matches when not being around for them.
Then you´ll have all the fun of just sitting and watching the game update itself and listen to your players bellyaching only ;)

[Midgard]

The above may sound like whining on the simple fact that i lost the cup. But you´ll see for yourself that, as usual, FM isn´t so solid in just too many areas to hold up for any longer time and gameplay.
Stuff all over and too many to mention that pulls down the overall score for this game series by now. And FM 2019 isn´t that much better, though improved in some areas, than the previous versions.
I would say it´s not worth it to pay for as a full price purchase really.