Getting Started
Here is a guide of do's and don't getting started
with ManagerZone. You will find a lot of this page
concerns money not your players. This is because
increasing your revenue and managing your expenses
is the best way to succeed in ManagerZone. With
money you can buy great players, coaches and youth
team - but first you need to get the money rolling
in and learn where not to waste it.
Part 1 - Does and Don't
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DO |
DONT |
- Increase the size of your stadium. Aim for a building
program that gets you a stadium to at least 7,000 spectators. BUT be
careful to ensure the proportions of the stadium are kept at 75% standing,
23% sitting, 2% VIP. This translates to 5,250 Terraces, 1,610
Sitting and 140 VIP. If you have to skimp, build just the Terraces
but dont build more that 6,000 as even if there are 7,000 that want to watch a
league match, only 5,250 will want to stand. So don't waste your
money on building things that don't get used and cost to maintain.
- Always ensure that you have enough cash to cover two weeks worth of
expenses. To be on the safe side, ensure that you have twice the
amount of cash in the bank as you have expenses. This will save you
getting bankruptcy notices.
- Add facilities carefully. Add hot dog stands. Lots of them
they are cheap. Believe or not, a 7,000 spectator stadium will keep
18 hot dog stands busy. It is also nice to build one of each other type
of facility as they give you good income on friendly games. Don't
build a hotel though as they are so many ways to make more money with a
lesser investment.
- Get lots of friendly games. Get lots of friendly games in. Home
games will give you revenue. Forget about being greedy and trying to
set up home games only though as: 1) you only get revenue on the first 2 friendly
games of the week 2) people will hate you.
- Read the Manual, then the rest of the FAQ. There are so many
things that people get caught out on because they haven't read the manual.
Read it. The FAQ will also cover the majority of questions when you
start out. (A friend lost £10k selling a player because he
didn't know the way the taxes worked. If had waited another week he could have got taxed less.)
- Visit the Forums. ManagerZone has its own forums. People
on there will be more that happy to assist you with your questions.
Please however, read the forums rules, the basics being avoid bad language
and offensive material, stay on topic. On the forums will see
a lot of users with letters behind their names (like MA, RA, FA, etc - see
Misc for an explanation), there people will help you.
- Be part of the community. Managerzone is played by lots
of people of differing ages. It has a nice atmosphere and to
preserve it please stay polite and exercise some restraints. Please
do not swear, you do not know who will be reading it.
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- Don't change your team or stadium name. Why ? Because
when you are starting out you really need that money for other things that
generate money. (A friend of
mine changed his stadium name when he just started. Then he realised he
made a spelling mistake and had to change it again. £30k in total ...ouch)
- Don't start buying lots of players on the transfer market.
The reason is that you may not really know whether a player is good value
or not. Even if he is cheap or free you have to keep paying
wages. A frequent error for people starting out is that they collect
lots and lots of players. Overnight their squad gets half as big again and
the wage bill rockets up. There is a sales tax on selling players
that means that you are NOT going to make a quick buck. Large
teams (above 25 players) cost a lot of money to maintain so to begin with
keep it small. In due course you may choose to have a big squad, but
now is not the right time to do it.
- Only buy a player on the transfer market if you absolutely need
too. You may need a good goalies for instance. Take your
time however. Be aware also that older players (older 25) might be
at the stage when they are loosing attributes. So be careful they
may not be the bargain they first seem.
- Don't build your stadium too big. A common mistake is
managers that make stadiums bigger than there current audience and they build
them wrong proportion. To begin with, a stadium of 7,000-8,000 is plenty. See
"Do".
- Don't build your stadium all in one go. You are better
off having several parallel building projects even though you are paying
out the proposal cost several times. A common mistake is to have a
massive stadium and facilities upgrade which takes a month. Had you
split the work, you would have very likely had a league's match worth
of revenue on that work which would have paid for that proposal cost twice
over.
- Don't build a hotel. Hotel cost as much as 20 hot dog
stands and 10 souvenir shops but only gives you the tenth of the revenue.
Building a hotel is something you do when you have built everything else.
- Don't sell your best players. New teams have one or two great
players. Keep them as you will find it very difficult to get players
of that calibre. Try to stay out of financial problems to begin with.
- Don't build a youth team straight away. Youth teams are good
and are an essential part of introducing new players into the system.
They are however quite expensive so wait until you have established your
stadium and have got revenue coming in.
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ManagerZone Weekly Calendar
| Event |
Monday |
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Thursday |
Friday |
Saturday |
Sunday |
| Training |
X |
X |
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X |
X |
X |
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| Training camp |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
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| Friendly Games |
X |
X |
|
X |
X |
X |
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| League Games |
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|
X |
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|
X |
| Expenses |
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|
X |
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| Sponsor Income |
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|
X |
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| New Youth Join |
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|
X |
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| Coaches Join |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
| Transfers |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
| Form update |
|
X |
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| Player values update |
X |
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| New Training Camp Packages |
X (PM) |
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* Player salaries are updated
at end of season. See Players section for more
detail.
** Coaches join the day after they accept the offer
Part 2 - General Advice
Hopefully you have observed Do's and Don't
reasonably closely and are wondering what you should
be concentrating on next. Be
prepared for the end of the season
At the end of the season, there is a
two week break when you do not have any league matches.
That means that you will not get the revenue you expect for
those two weeks. There is no revenue substitute
revenue and it generally means that a lot of teams will
spend more than they earn in those two weeks. So be
prepared, save up enough cash equivalent to two league
games. Also your team will need to find some other
matches to keep their form up. Assessing your players
Ultimately, this game is about selecting your players and
choosing the right formation and tactic for them. When
you start out trying to work out who to choose for what
position might be a little overwhelming.
There are a few web sites that can help you out, check
the Links section. These sites allow you to cut and
paste your squad as seen in the "Players - Alt. View" and it
will give you an indication of each players strength.
When you start out , you might find this useful.
Use these tools for guidance, only as your game develops you
may form your own opinions to a value of a certain player.
Remember that these tools give you a score which don't
take into account of tactics. For instance there you
may have two midfielders that are identical except one has 2
passing and 6 cross ball but the other player might have 5
passing and 2 crossball. The first player may have
more points but not be as useful to you if are using
"passing" tactics. Once you think you've picked your initial squad you will
have some players left over. It is at this point
you need to think about who to keep or get rid of.
Remember you need to have players in reserve either because
one of your main players gets injured or because you need to
be able to put a second team together to play friendly games
without tiring your 1st team. If you have players that
have very few balls in any attribute or wrong mix of
attributes and arent that young, you ought to consider
getting rid of them. If this is the case, this is the
right time to get a youth team. It just isnt worth building
up a senior player with no major skills, a youth team is
much better to way to go. Youth Team
The main reason for advising people not to get a youth
team the minute they start is for financial reasons.
Youth team cost money and if your stadium isn't built up and
you have the full squad you started with, you will run out
of money or have so little money that advancing will be
slow. Youths however are the future. Getting an
initial squad of maybe 5 youths is a great start. The
main benefits of youths is they train quickly. Also
you can put one youth in a training camp for free.
When that youth completes his training you can put another
youth in the camp for free.. Basically there is one
free training slot for a youth. Its not unusual for a
youth to gain 3-5 balls at camp, so its very worthwhile.
You can use your youths to create that all important second
team. Most youths are cheaper than seniors so in
instances you have a bunch of seniors you don't really want
but have been keeping them for your second team, youths are
a great alternative and you have a chance of building a
superstar.
Timing of when to order a youth team is
quite important, please read the "Youths"
section to better understand at what time in the season
makes sense. Trading players to make money
Many established teams have got their big money from
trading players. ie buy a player cheap and sell it for
more or sell players they built up in the youth academy.
Managerzone transfer market however is not geared to "day trading".
In fact, if you have not had a player for a certain length
of time you will be very very heavily taxed.
Consequently, making money from the transfer market is best
achieved when you have an income infrastructure which can
withstand you keeping players you don't really need for a
prolonged period of time. Read the
Transfers section to under more
about taxes. Getting coaches
Getting coaches seems to be somewhat a haphazard affair.
You bid what you consider to be a reasonable amount and get
rejected week after week. It seems also that some
skills are harder to find a coach for and get acceptance.
This is just an indication of general demand for that type
of coach. A technique I used was to pay quite high to
get all the coaches I needed. I would then look to
replace those coaches over time by bidding considerably for
a coach with the same skills. Most of the time I got
rejected but every now and then I would be accepted. I
would then fire the original coach with that skill.
Overtime I managed to greatly reduce my coach salary bill.
You want to win games? Make sure your Form is good
You may have a good team, but if their Form is bad, they
will play terrible in a match. They wont play a little
bit bad, they will play very badly. So each of
the players you play in your league games, or any games you
care about, make sure their Form is good. You don't
have to worry about the overall team's form however as it
may includes players you don't play. Try to get each
player to have a form of 8+. To get this you need to
get them to the state of "satisfied" and keep them in that
state. Read the Players
section that gives you guidance on how to get to "satisfied"
and how to keep it at that level.
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