Football, Tactics & Glory News

Two bugs recently reported by players on the forum have been fixed:

• In some season statistics sections, all-time statistics were being displayed. Fixed.
  
• A club could issue a task to improve the Youth Academy or Stadium, even though these buildings were already at maximum level. Fixed.
  

Enjoy the game!

Earlier, I wrote about the introduction of national teams in the game. But besides the World Championship being added to the game, you'll also be able to participate in it by taking charge of a national team.


As a manager, you earn Reputation points by completing club tasks. The higher your Reputation, the more prestigious clubs will send you job offers.

Similarly with national teams. Starting from a certain level of Reputation, you will begin to receive job offers from teams that have not achieved great success. Moreover, if you simulate countries on other continents, you will receive invitations from those countries as well. As your Reputation grows, more prestigious national teams will want you to take charge.



The management will expect you to achieve certain successes with the team. Weaker teams will expect you to get them to the final part of the tournament. Average teams will expect you to reach the semi-finals or at least get out of the group in the final stage. And strong teams, of course, will expect you to win the tournament.

At the beginning of development, we planned to make it so you could only take charge of one thing: either a club or a national team, as that would be realistic. But since national team matches are rare, and you cannot develop it the same way as a club, the gameplay in such a case would be boring. You would need to wait long periods to just play 1-2 qualification matches, while only once every 2 years there would be an interesting final stage of the World Championship or the European Championship (or Americas, or other continents).

Eventually, we decided that you would manage the national team alongside managing a club. We managed to create a convenient interface that allows you to easily navigate between two different line-ups.


A few days before the match, you will need to invite 25 footballers to the national team's lineup.

On the left, you will see the list of players who were invited for the last match, and on the right - all the players of this nationality who play in the Premier Leagues and First Leagues.



If a footballer cannot be invited (for example, the club won't release him because it would lack players), an "Attention" icon will appear next to him. By hovering over it, you will find out why the player will not be able to play in the upcoming matches.


On the day of the national team match, the flags of the participating countries are displayed on the main screen. Preparation for the match is similar to club matches. That is, you see the opponent's team and choose a formation to counter it.



Unlike the club, there is no infrastructure to improve here. Also, there is no possibility to train players (because their development is the responsibility of the owning clubs). However, you have access to statistics, the ability to change the kit, and upload your own team logo.

When managing the national team, you won't have Money or Glory, as there's nothing to spend them on.


Overall, when managing a national team, it's easier to lose Reputation than to gain it. Firstly, to accept an invitation to a national team, you need to spend a large amount of Reputation. It can only pay off if you successfully lead the team for at least 2 seasons in a row.



Furthermore, to motivate footballers, you will have to use your Reputation, not Glory as in club football.

On the other hand, successfully managing a national team for several seasons in a row will earn you an extraordinarily large amount of Reputation.


I've already written here about statistics. It's worth adding that you can view statistical data for each national tournament just as you view statistics for club tournaments. Moreover, statistics for the qualifying rounds and final stages will be collected separately.




We spent a tremendous amount of time implementing national tournaments and the mechanics of managing national teams. But when you start a new campaign, you won't immediately see all these mechanics. It might seem like not much has been added to the game. Because this is largely endgame content.

You start the game in the Amateur League, living the adventure life of a manager overcoming difficulties on the way to the Premier League. And only after earning enough Reputation, when you've made a name for yourself as a good manager, will you get access to a large part of the new content.

Of course, you can follow national tournaments without managing a team. You can watch national team matches, follow the World Championship, and view statistics. But managing a national team will only be available when you reach the top leagues.

And if you want to start the game managing a national team right away, you can do that. You'll need to "issue" yourself a large amount of Reputation when creating a campaign. After accepting an invitation from a club, you will also receive an invitation to take charge of a national team.




Unfortunately, due to significant technical difficulties, we are unable to release the game in June as planned. Most of the new mechanics are working. However, we decided to rewrite the graphics engine, which turned out to be an exceptionally complex and laborious task. If we succeed in what we have planned, it should impress you.

Therefore, we are currently considering the idea of releasing the game in limited Early Access in June. We will temporarily increase the price of the game to limit the number of players who get access to the game. Those who want to support us will be able to buy the game, play it, and provide feedback on various mechanics. At the same time, most players will see the game in its final form at launch with a reduced price.


First and foremost, visit the game's page and add it to your wishlist. This way, you will receive an email from Steam when the game goes into Early Access or Full Release.

Secondly, click "Follow" to be notified whenever we publish news on Steam.


The great place to get notified about news and discuss them is our Discord.
Also, to follow our news, you can subscribe to our mailing list: Email subscription.

When a player begins to understand how the game mechanics work, the Normal difficulty level starts to feel quite easy (though it remains strategic and interesting). Those players who want to "just beat the game," meaning to win all possible trophies, will do so and find enjoyment.

For those who now seek more challenges, there was a High difficulty level in the game. It allowed players to look at the mechanics from a new angle, realize their depth, and enjoy the struggle for survival in the lower leagues.

Those who have been following the game for a long time know that as a game designer, I dislike giving AI unfair advantages. Therefore, High difficulty does not affect the opponents' chances to score a goal or take the ball away. The difficulty is created naturally: through tougher initial conditions and higher prices for various upgrades. Such fair difficulty has its pros and cons.

• Pros - the sense of game fairness and the value of your tactical and strategic skills in achieving your team's successes.
  
• Cons - it's hard to make the game even more difficult while still maintaining the authenticity of the game world.
  

Still, in FTGW, we've prepared a few surprises for players who would like the game to be even harder (especially in the later stages of the game).


In the "Football Stars" DLC, a new mechanic was introduced: Giftedness, which is expressed in the number of stars a footballer has. The higher the Giftedness, the higher the footballer's skill potential in a match.

Assuming a footballer with zero Giftedness has a skill potential of 5, then

• a footballer with Talent 1 would have a potential of 6;
  
• a footballer with Talent 2 would have a potential of 7;
  
• a footballer with Talent 3 would have a potential of 8;
  
• etc.
  

For example, a footballer with Giftedness 3 could perform a Cannon Shot with a potential of 8. If the goalkeeper had Giftedness 5, he would attempt to intercept a shot with a potential of 10. Such a small difference in skill potentials made Talent an important characteristic, while also giving chances for less talented footballers to outplay more talented ones.



On High difficulty, with each level of Giftedness, the skill potential increased by 2. This made Talent a more important characteristic. And since the player starts the campaign with a team of untalented old footballers, climbing to the higher leagues became even more difficult. The screenshot shows a similar situation, but with High difficulty:



In FTGW, we decided to make the dependence of skill potential on Giftedness adjustable in the campaign settings. You can change this dependence within a range from +1 to +5. Choosing +3 or higher, you start to appreciate gifted footballers significantly more. Here's a screenshot of a similar situation but with the setting +5:



This setting also affects other mechanics related to skill potential. For example, if the setting +5 is chosen, when a footballer receives motivation, his potential temporarily increases by 5. When a footballer fully learns the "Talent" skill tree, his potential increases by 5. Pressuring an opponent, the footballer reduces his potential by 5.

Previously, if an experienced player in the First Division built a strong team, this team almost automatically became competitive in the Premier League. This was somewhat disappointing because, on High difficulty, you want more of a challenge.

However, setting this to +5, first, the path to the higher leagues will be longer, and second, the top teams of the Premier League will still pose a challenge for several seasons with their gifted footballers. And this is precisely what the game lacked - the difficulty slightly increases, and at the same time, the game world remains fair.

An additional plus of this setting is that you can use it on other difficulty levels. For example, if you like the economy of Normal difficulty, but you want Giftedness to have a stronger effect on the game, you can set this setting, for instance, to +3 and choose Normal difficulty.


The problem with the difficulty of strategic games lies in their very nature. A game feels strategic when a player can use planning, cleverness, and the ability to use the situation to their advantage to win against stronger opponents, having a weaker army or football team.

If the game allows winning against stronger opponents thanks to your intellect, there are three ways to make such a game harder:

1. Give AI opponents unfair advantages (stronger unit attacks, the opponent sees what the player does not, skewed randomness in favour of the opponent);
   
2. Worsen the player's starting conditions;
   
3. Reduce the influence of the player's intellect on the situation (i.e., make the outcome of the battle/match more dependent on the strength of the army/team than on the player's tactics).
   

Obviously, we will never use the first option, although it is used in many games (for example, in Civilization). Still, for us, it's important that the game world is perceived as authentic and fair.

Most current difficulties are the second point, i.e., various variations of worsening the player's starting conditions.

The new randomness option is the third variant. It reduces the effect of luck and increases the role of Giftedness of the footballers. The goal of this option is to make stronger footballers even stronger.

The game already has several RNG types. But personally, as a player, I do not like changing them. I enjoy the random nature of ordinary randomness. It can sometimes create completely wild stories, as happens in real football.

However, the new type of randomness "Reduced+" brings something interesting into the game. Before explaining its working principle, I will first describe how the "Reduced" RNG works:

• In default randomness, when performing an action, a random number from 1 to the footballer's potential is chosen. Thus, the lower boundary of the roll is always 1.
  
• In "Reduced" randomness, the lower boundary of the random number will always be 30% of the footballer's potential.
  
• So, if a footballer with Defence 60 tries to take the ball from an opponent with Control 45, the defender will roll a random number in the range of 20-60, and the opponent - in the range of 15-45.
  

This type of randomness does well in making strong footballers feel even stronger. And accordingly, as long as your team is weaker, it will be harder to play.

The new "Reduced+" randomness, in turn, makes more talented footballers even stronger. It works like this:

• A footballer with Giftedness 0 has a lower boundary of 1;
  
• A footballer with Giftedness 1 has a lower boundary of 10%;
  
• A footballer with Giftedness 2 has a lower boundary of 20%;
  
• A footballer with Giftedness 3 has a lower boundary of 30%;
  
• A footballer with Giftedness 4 has a lower boundary of 40%;
  
• A footballer with Giftedness 5 has a lower boundary of 60%;
  

If you've been paying attention, you'll see that with each step of Giftedness, the lower boundary increases by 10%, but for footballers with Giftedness 5, the lower boundary jumps by 20%.

Thus, the most gifted footballers will always roll high values, and it will be harder to play against them. Choosing this option, the player reduces the effect of their tactical and strategic decisions because the strength of the footballers and their Giftedness will have a significant impact on the team's results. Your ability to play will be tested because you will have to find ways to win against teams that have more talented footballers in their ranks.


These two settings were created to work in tandem. Thus, choosing "Reduced+" randomness and the dependency of skill potential on Giftedness +5 increases the game's difficulty, especially noticeable in the Premier League and games against stronger opponents.

However, at some point, you will still build a strong team, and the game will again become less challenging. But this moment will come much later than now.

In one of my latest test campaigns, I led an average Ukrainian team to the top of world football, playing on High difficulty, activating "Reduced+" randomness, and setting the dependency of skill potential on Giftedness to +5.

Playing became harder (and more interesting). When you first enter the European Cup, you physically feel how powerful the teams there are. Playing against them, you cannot expect random goals. If you score, it's only after a carefully thought-out tactic.

The greater effect of these settings was created in the national team games. When I took over the Ukrainian national team, where most footballers had Giftedness 3-4, playing against teams like France or Germany (Giftedness 4-5) was incredibly hard. Managing a draw felt like luck, and a victory felt like something incredible. Playing is possible, but you must understand the game mechanics at a very high level. The downside is that you will never win against an opponent who has an average Giftedness higher than yours on 2 or more. But it's a part of what makes these settings to be harder.

On the other hand, not everyone may like that the possibility of winning against stronger opponents is limited. So, you can ignore these settings. They are made for those who need extra difficulty.


For experienced players who want to make the game more challenging, we've created two new options that allow increasing the difficulty. One of these options increases the dependency of skills on Talent, and the other links Talent to the lower boundary of random numbers.

Regardless of the type of randomness you play with, we believe the first option (Dependency of skill potential on Talent) is very interesting. It's worth trying different values and seeing what you prefer. The game feels completely different with a setting of +1 compared to a setting of +3, and even more so with a setting of +5. None of the options is better - each may suit some players and not others. In any case, you have more opportunities to customize the game to your tastes.


First and foremost, visit the game's page and add it to your wishlist. This way, you will receive an email from Steam when the game goes into Early Access or Full Release.

Secondly, click "Follow" to be notified whenever we publish news on Steam.


The great place to get notified about news and discuss them is our Discord.
Also, to follow our news, you can subscribe to our mailing list: Email subscription.

The main new feature in FTGW will be football cultures. In this post, I'll explain what they are and how they will work.


Historically, it has been customary in England to fight for every ball, while in Brazil, showing good ball handling technique is appreciated. These differences are determined by the history of football development in the country and national culture. Thus, these football peculiarities can be called the football cultures of countries.


In modern football, there are no longer such stark differences in how footballers play in different countries. But we still watch the World Cup to see how each national team expresses its uniqueness.

Besides, some (or all?) football fans notice that the Spanish La Liga is perceived quite differently from the German Bundesliga.

So, differences in playing style exist, it's just hard to articulate them.

We decided that football cultures will be certain game mechanics that are only available to footballers of a specific nationality. These should be mechanics that are easy to understand and use in a match.

Here's a list of some football cultures currently implemented in our development version and which we are actively testing:

• England (fighting for the ball) - all footballers additionally have a first-level Slide Tackle skill. If a footballer already has Slide Tackle, then the potential of their skills increases.
  
• Germany (ball possession) - when a footballer uses the Hold action, the Control attribute increases by 30, not 20. Also increases the skill potential (making it harder to take the ball away with a Slide Tackle).
  
• Spain (tiki-taka) - all footballers additionally have a first-level Layoff Pass skill. If a footballer already has Layoff Pass, then the potential of their skills increases.
  
• Italy (defence through preventing penetrating passes) - all footballers additionally have a first-level Interception talent (which blocks Long Pass and Layoff Pass). If a footballer already has this talent, then the potential of their skills increases.
  
• France (strong special classes) - all footballers of special classes have increased skill potential.
  
• Netherlands (universal football) - all footballers of universal classes (except goalkeepers) have their attributes increased by 30%.
  
• Belgium (fighting for the ball) - when performing the Tackle action, the footballer's Defense attribute increases by 30%.
  
• Ukraine (playing through the flanks) - when performing an action from the flank, the footballer's attributes increase by 25%.
  
• Austria (playing through Lofted passes) - when performing Lofted pass, distance coefficients are reduced, making Lofted passes easier (standard values 25, 35, 60, 110, Austrian values: 15, 25, 50, 95).
  
• Switzerland (total pressing) - when performing the Pressing action, the opponent's Control is reduced by 25 (instead of 15), and the potential of defence from the skill (Slide Tackle) is reduced twice as much.
  
• Portugal (long passes) - all footballers additionally have a first-level Long Pass skill. If a footballer already has this skill, then the potential of their skills increases.
  
• Brazil (all footballers love to feint) - all footballers additionally have a first-level Rainbow Feint skill. If a footballer already has this skill, then the potential of their skills increases.
  
• Argentina (all footballers love to feint with speed) - all footballers additionally have a first-level Nutmeg skill. If a footballer already has this skill, then the potential of their skills increases.
  

This screenshot shows which countries currently have football cultures in the development version (countries with the "i" icon). The tooltip for Germany's football culture is shown at the top. Additionally, the screenshot reveals some additional new features that I haven't officially announced yet ;)

These football cultures may still change before the game's release; they are currently in the testing process. But I like the vast majority of them.

We have ideas for other countries that are still waiting their turn. But if you have any ideas for specific countries, we would love to hear them. We are especially interested in less well-known football countries.

I'm not sure if all countries will have their own football cultures in the final version of the game. Possibly, several countries might share one common culture. And some, the least popular in terms of football, might not have their own culture at all. However, the majority of countries will still have something to delight players with.


Football cultures change the game in three important aspects:

1. They diversify the game in each country.
   
2. They make transfers more interesting.
   
3. They diversify the game with national teams.
   

[h3]1. Playing in different countries[/h3]
In the original game, the difference between Ukraine and England was only felt in that teams in Ukraine's Premier League were a bit weaker. And in England, rainy weather was more common. If you started the game in the Amateur League, there was no difference between England and Ukraine.

Later in the expansions, we added dependency of the cost and Giftedness of footballers on the country's rating. Also, the strength of teams in different countries became even more dependent on the rating. So in the higher leagues, a player could feel they were playing in a weaker country. But overall, there was no difference in gameplay between different countries. If you, as a coach, moved to work in another country, the scenery changed, but the approach to matches remained the same.

Now, starting the game in a particular country, you will feel a completely different gameplay. In England, the game will be fast-paced because everyone has Slide Tackle skill, so it's impossible to keep the ball. In Germany, on the other hand, progress to the enemy's goal will be built through ball control. In Spain, thanks to Layoff Pass, the ball will quickly move to different areas of the field. And in Brazil, even a defender will be able to slightly improve their position by dribbling past an opponent.

Even such a situational bonus as in Ukraine (+25% to all attributes if a footballer is on the flank) significantly affects the gameplay. Especially in the lower leagues. Because now you think about whether to try to take the ball directly or move one square, get a boost to attributes and try to tackle from there. I was personally pleasantly surprised by how this variety feels.

This screenshot shows Ukraine's football culture in an Amateur League match. The footballer in the yellow shirt is tackling from the flank. Pressing the Ctrl key will bring up a tooltip that shows the effects influencing the footballer's attributes.

For experienced players, it might be interesting to try to raise a team from the Amateur League, starting the game in hard mode. You are guaranteed to have a new exciting experience in each country.

Moreover, players who change clubs every season, moving to work in other countries, are guaranteed an interesting experience.

[h3]2. More interesting transfers[/h3]
Previously, a footballer's nationality did not matter. If you needed a midfielder with a third-level Long Pass, it didn't matter what country they were from.

Now you will think twice before sending a scout to another country. Because now you have an interesting choice.

For example, in the same situation with a midfielder with a Long Pass. If you find such a footballer in Portugal, he will be more effective in giving Long Passes. If you find one in Spain, in addition to the Long Pass, he will also have a Layoff Pass. If you find one in Austria, in addition, he will be more effective in performing Lofted Passes.

The number of interesting combinations and possibilities in team building has significantly increased.

In my team (on the left) - many footballers are from other countries. Some footballers I bought just for their Giftedness, attributes, age, and skills. But some I bought because, in addition to their characteristics, their football culture suited me. For example, I have CD Croux from Belgium. He gets +30% when performing the Tackling action. RD Bushell from England already knows Sliding Tackle, so his skill potential is increased. In this campaign, I play with yet-to-be-announced new settings that increase the difficulty of the game for experienced players. With these settings, increasing skill potential is critically important.

[h3]3. National Teams[/h3]
When we first implemented the management of national teams, it was somewhat interesting, but there was a slight disappointment that, for example, the Ukrainian team was different from the English team in terms of footballer levels and the number of 5-star talents. Overall, if you relied on tactics like Long Passes and runs into the penalty area, there wasn't much difference between the teams.

However, when we introduced the first iteration of football cultures, the differences between the teams became much more noticeable and interesting. For instance, Portugal would be more effective in using Long Pass tactics. But Italy would fairly counter this strategy, so against this country, you would have to use a different approach.

Playing against each national team, you can prepare differently for the match. Additionally, football cultures can be used situationally, at unexpected moments, sometimes leading to the creation of your own unique football stories that happened only in your game. This makes the World Cup and Continental Championships (Europe, America, etc.) an intriguing spectacle.



We hope to add the ability to watch matches of national teams. So you will not only manage but also watch how the teams use their strengths.


Football cultures fundamentally change FTGW. It will still be the good old FTG, but much more diverse and with enormous additional depth created by each individual culture.

If you get tired of playing in England, you can always start playing, for example, in Spain or Ukraine, and get a completely new gaming experience. If you could easily play 1000+ hours before, now the game becomes even more variable and interesting.

We are open to ideas for football cultures that could be added to teams from Asia, Africa, America, and the lower part of the European ranking. We have our own ideas, but if someone suggests something better than what we have, we would be happy to listen.


First and foremost, visit the game's page and add it to your wishlist. This way, you will receive an email from Steam when the game goes into Early Access or Full Release.

Secondly, click "Follow" to be notified whenever we publish news on Steam.


The great place to get notified about news and discuss them is our Discord.
Also, to follow our news, you can subscribe to our mailing list: Email subscription.

Some of you have been playing FTG since Early Access (2015-2018), some discovered FTG in its release year (2018), while others heard about it in the last 5 years.

Throughout this time, we've listened to your wishes, comments, and feedback. And all this time, we've been improving the game, adding both major and minor enhancements. We've released a large number of free updates, as well as 2 DLCs that significantly changed the gaming experience.

FTG for us is not just a game. It's our dream game.

It's a football manager that truly entertains, that allows you to make important decisions and see clear consequences, that respects the player and their time, and at the same time, offers the opportunity to play for hundreds or thousands of hours, creating your own stories that happened only in your football world.

And if we survive this damn war, we will continue to delight and surprise you with new and interesting gaming experiences in the world of Football, Tactics & Glory.



Although a niche game can't compete with games in more popular genres, you still vote for it in the category 'Labour of Love'.

Also, if you haven't written a review yet, please do so, as it really helps us. And if you have time, write reviews for those DLCs you've played too.