Football, Tactics & Glory

Football Tactics & Glory is a turn-based football game. Maybe you could say it is Football meets Chess. There’s quite a lot to understand, so the tutorial is split up in small chunks and delivered to you across the first season. This is annoying when I had a Power Header striker, but I wasn’t told how to cross the ball until near the end of the season. There is an in-game help section if you want to read loads of text, so maybe it is my fault for not specifically seeking out the information. The crossing mechanic is not an intuitive mechanic because you don’t target the player - you target the opposite side of the area.

Given that football licenses cost a fortune, and these days not even EA have the full licences (eg Juventus), obviously there’s no official licences here. However, you can download mods via Steam, or just edit the Teams yourself.

The main game is to start with a newly created team and work your way up the leagues. You, give your club a name, design their badge and kits. Your squad is a mix of poor players and half-decent ones, but the good ones are in their prime so will retire in a couple of years. Money is hard to come by, so I think you are expected to sell the old players over the first few seasons.

Players gain experience and level up. You get more experience for playing the full match, then a bonus if you are in the best 3 players on the team. Attributes increase, especially the one you choose to focus on, so you can mold the players in your style. There are four attributes, Accuracy, Passing, Defence and Control. There is a simple skill tree to gain extra perks like extra experience gain, shorter time to learn skills, and extra attribute boosts.

In each turn, you have 3 moves, and your options in possession are basically: pass, dribble, or shoot. Out of possession, you move, press or tackle. You can Short Pass over 3 squares, longer passes need to use the Lofted Ball move which is less accurate. Since the grid is square-based rather than hex-based, longer diagonal balls can be achieved. A player with Long Pass trait can be extremely useful.

The success of your moves is based on your attributes then a random number generator. So for example, if you tackle, a random number between 1 and your Defensive attribute is generated, then compared to the opposition’s random number between 1 and his Control attribute. If you instruct a player to press, then the opposition’s Control is lowered by 15 points.

Players are classed as either defenders, midfield, attack, or unknown. But then there are specialist positions, so defenders have Fullback, Centre Back, Sweeper. Each position has certain traits too. Sweeper automatically moves 1 square left or right to stay on the same side as the ball. Centre Forwards automatically move towards goal when there is a free space. Wingers have increased movement range. Wide forwards have a “break in” move which allows you to dribble from wide into the area as a free move.

You can reposition your players to create any kind of formation. The same player starts with the ball after each kick off which I didn’t like. The game auto-selects a player near the center circle. This player has to pass and cannot dribble which is annoying. Sometimes, against the poor teams, you have a scoring chance straight from kick off, then can just repeat it if you concede. I would have preferred some degree of randomness here, maybe different players starting with the ball, or repositioning the players slightly to create more interesting scenarios.

Players can have certain skills which create massive advantages. A successful move
doesn’t count towards your Move allowance. You can use some of them repeatedly like Rainbow Flick 3 players in a row (this is very overpowered), and even do it against the keeper to score. These skills are disabled for the kick-off turn. However, there are certain skills which are still allowed like “break in” which is a bit strange. Defensive Midfield seems overpowered where they can intercept ground passes over 2 tiles.

Most teams play defensively, like 5 at the back. It’s really difficult to find a way to score, when multiple defenders have a chance to intercept shots, or have multiple chances to tackle a dribbling player.

Winning, and by a larger margin awards you with “Glory”. You gain more Glory for winning against stronger teams. This Glory can be used for upgrades like coaches which boost exp. You also gain more “Fans” which bring in more money on the home games. This system seemed to work fine until my second promotion where I was the worst rated team in the league. When I won, I bizarrely only gained 1 fan, but a loss would lose ~22 fans. By the end of that season I had lost around 300 fans. So the fan aspect seemed like a broken mechanic.

Money can be spent on new players, renewing contracts, or upgrading stadium or youth academy. Every transfer window gives you a new youth player. Unless you have invested millions in the academy, then the players will be poor. You will need to keep playing them to level them up and increase their attributes.

There's not many shots in each game, so this can be frustrating if the teams basically cancel each other out, especially within your first few seasons playing the game when you don’t understand the mechanics enough. Once you have a better understanding of your own players, and how to try to counteract the opposition; then the game is really fun.

I feel that Football Tactics & Glory is a great game, but then there’s a few aspects that I would tweak. I haven’t played the expansion pack, but it seems to have some new ideas, gameplay tweaks and loads of statistical views. I’ll probably pick that up at some point.