Football, Tactics, & Glory: Statistically Uncertain

Football, Tactics & Glory:

Football, Tactics & Glory: From Stardom to the Sidelines and Back

Football, Tactics & Glory: Training the Player and the Players

Football, Tactics, & Glory: Statistically Uncertain

Football, Tactics & Glory: A Team History

Initially it seems like Football, Tactics & Glory records solid, if minimal, data. For each character the game remembers the number of matches played, goals scored, assists, tackles, and saves for each year, along with trophies, and awards. Football, Tactics & Glory awards Man of the Match stats, and records the amount of cash spent by the player on each character's contract. The Club History page records the ranking of each team every year, along with their power level (on a scale of 0 to 5) and trophies. Sadly, the developers missed a shot, or two.

Too much information disappears into a digital black hole. Players can't look at their past schedule. Retired characters vanish.

Then they embraced simplicity over subtlety and it harms personal stats. Assists are only awarded to one touch plays; pass, shoot. Not, pass, move, shoot. This may be true in real life (I am not a professional football statistician). An assist never goes to the character who passed to the character who passed to the shooter. Central Midfielders, who set up shots by passing to the crosser earn no stats. The most integral member in the history of the Philosophers was Greenwood, a CM. Yet the less skilled crosser, Arlotte, earned more assists. Greenwood expertly controlled the ball, defending it against opposing midfielders, and passed it perfectly. Yet, these actions remained uncredited, because there was no stat to record it. Passing Defenders, or Wing Defenders who run the ball up along the sides, are similarly unrecognized. Controlling the ball and passes up field are beneath Football, Tactics & Glory's notice.

Goalies stats are strange. Football, Tactics & Glory only records saves, not shots, therefore no save percentage. A poor goalie with a bad defense may appear superior, statistically, than an excellent goalie with a superb defense. Goalies are ranked solely on their number of saves. The ranking of a goalkeeper suffers as his defense improves, because he has no shots to save.

Defenders earn Tackle stats for stealing the ball, but does blocking a shot count?

These are not idle concerns. Characters are ranked on goals, assists, tackles, and saves. A ranking board displays the current competitors. The winner of each category earns cash, glory, and fans for their team.

Football, Tactics & Glory allows customization of the faces of characters, though options are limited to realistic colors. No blue skin or flaming red hair. The headshots displayed on the character screens, and the characters on the field, appear well proportioned. But on close ups, displayed during celebrations, characters appear ugly, deformed, and stunted, as if their heads are misproportioned to their bodies. They are well animated in their movements. After an opponent scores, the player's characters react with resignation. The crossing plays, into headers, are exceptionally well executed. The character's display a variety of actions. Sometimes the scorer heads the ball into the net. Or they perform a wicked backflip kick.

Football, Tactics & Glory generates thousands of names for the campaign. While the variety initially appears endless, names start to repeat after ten years.

Across fourteen seasons I played almost every game. Football, Tactics & Glory allows the player to simulate or watch. I only skipped the few games I was certain of winning. So with this experience let me offer some insights, tips, and criticisms. First, on the kick off, the player can't use any Skills for the first three actions. No passing Skills to place the ball, or scoring Skills for any easy goal. To score on the kickoff, the team needs either a simple pass to a character with an excellent ACC skill, or to pass, move, and cross the ball to a character with the Head Play Talent. I preferred the latter, because the AI opponent doesn't understand how to block a cross. They don't adjust their formation even if they are scored against, again and again. A regular shot can set up a corner kicks, which is another form of crossing. A power shot, if not blocked, rebounds. Its final location seems random. Sometimes the deflected shot goes out of bounds. Or it bounces back to the kicker, or a defender. Players should know what mechanics determine the outcome. Sometimes the computer luckily (for them) employs a formation that naturally blocks crosses. Therefore, the player needs another method of scoring; a ACC or Skill shooter.

Because matches are short, with only 24 actions per team, the player needs to evaluate the enemy formation and choose the best counters. Then they need to assess the best plan of attack and use it. Revise the formation if necessary. A player only has six to eight scoring attempts against a difficult team. Don't waste them. Football, Tactics & Glory is more of an analytical game than an experimental one. When in control of the ball, time management is key. Play around the clock. If there is not enough time to score before the end of the half, manage the ball by kicking it deep so the opponent can't score either, defend it with a character with significant CTR, or kick it out of reach of the opponent's forwards.

Sometimes the opponent's defensive formation is invulnerable as is. Break it by forcing them to move to attack the ball.

Persuading the enemy team to commit a foul isn't difficult. Rain increases the chance of fouls. Train one character with a high CTR for defense, midfield, and offense. If the character is fouled right at the goal they earn a penalty kick. This screen shows the net, goalie, and kicker. The goal is divided into six parts, top, middle, and bottom, left, center, and right. The goalkeeper and kicker both choose one of the six spots. If the goalie chooses the same as the kicker, he blocks it. Otherwise it's a GOOOOOOAL!(with a slight chance to miss). The kicker's ACC attribute, and the Goalkeeper's DEF attribute have no impact. Luck is the only factor. Oddly, the fouled character isn't necessarily the kicker. Multiple times my LF, Shakeshaft, was fouled, only for my CF, Beaumont, to take the kick, unfairly earning him the stat bonus.

Initially I played a 4-3-3 formation. My defense included a Sweeper, Universal Defender, and two Central Defenders. For midfielders I had a Defensive Mid, Central Mid, and Universal Mid. On offense, I had a Center Forward, Wing Forward, and an extra.

The main strategy was to have the Central Midfielder pass to the Wing Forward, who would shoot, or pass to the Universal Mid who would cross for the Center Forward to head the ball in. The extra forward was on the field only for training purposes. Later, with more games and a greater reliance on every character, I started playing 5-3-2. I swapped a training forward for a Defensive Wing, to bring the ball up and control it. Of all the positions, I couldn't imagine a team without a Sweeper. That position does so much work; blocking shots and recovering the ball.

Unlike other Skills, for which there is no maximum value, passing requires a specific number depending on the needs of the character. A character expected to pass the maximum distance of five spaces needs a PAS of 110. A crossing character needs a similarly high number. But the defense and any other midfielder only needs 60 PAS. This number allows for lofted passes traveling four spaces.

I played fourteen seasons. I won the Premier League, National Cup, and European Cup (though not all in the same year). I enjoyed it, but it was too easy. As mentioned previously, Football, Tactics & Glory offers three types of RNG, and the player's first campaign is automatically set to the easiest; Expected. This mode plays slightly in the players favor, but how much? I regret this design decision, which can't be changed. Under these conditions I regularly beat 4½ ☆ teams with my 2☆ team (teams are ranked from 0 to 5 ☆). Most of the time the computer makes reasonable choices, but sometimes it trips itself up, like shooting a 50 ACC shot against a 150 DEF goalkeeper, when the shooting character also has Cannon Shot x3 Skill.

In conclusion, make sure to check the starting rules, and set RNG to Default or Decreased. Playing with Expected RNG, feels like cheating, even if it was unintentional. You'll doubt every success, seeing it as a product of the stacked rules, rather than a personal success. Otherwise this twist on the classic sport management sim, Football, Tactics & Glory, does not disappoint. It satisfied my desire for a board game, video game fusion. It offered good systems for a first attempt. Yet it would be negligent to pretend it doesn't lack in a number of areas. Creoteam knows this.

In 2020 they released an expansion, Football, Tactics, & Glory: Football Stars. It expands stats, differentiates characters, adds complexity to the many simple systems (economy, trading, club improvements), and improves visual effects. This list is a perfect catalog of criticism I have with the game. The developer knows exactly where the flaws of the game lie, and they want customers to pay another fifteen dollars to fix them.

While Creoteam succeeded in their goal of merging turn-based tactics with sports management, they can only offer the pinnacle of the sport to season ticket holders.

I'd play Football, Tactics & Glory again, but not without the expansion, and I don't plan on buying it. The improvements, currently costing extra money, sound like a patch, rather than an expansion. They should be implemented in the game for all customers.

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