DE.

I managed to get Accy up to the PL in one game but the Championship was initially a struggle, as @Dreams of 1995 says you really notice it when you get promoted from League 1. Usually takes a season or two to adjust and even then you aren't exactly rolling in money. I ended up departing Accy after getting them into the PL as I was given a transfer budget of £1.5m and barely any improvement in wage budget either. Ended up going to Brighton I think.

https://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri If you load this website up on that laptop and select FM20 it should be able to say whether it will run or not.

These are the minimum specs for FM20: MINIMUM: OS: Windows 7 (SP1), 8/8.1, 10 (Update 1803/April 2018 or later) – 64-bit Processor: Intel Pentium 4 (64-bit), Intel Core 2 or AMD Athlon 64 – 2.2 GHz + Memory: 2 GB RAM Graphics: Intel GMA X4500, NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT or AMD/ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650 – 256MB VRAM DirectX: Version 11 Storage: 7 GB available space Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system Obviously minimum meaning the game will actually load and theoretically run. I have no idea what performance would be like on those kind of specs.

If you aren't bothered about doing any other type of gaming on the laptop and aren't worried about watching matches on higher graphics settings then focus on a laptop with a good processor and decent amount of RAM (at least 16GB) and you'll be fine. FM is extremely processor-intensive so the better processor you can get the better. Most laptops these days come with 16GB RAM as standard so that shouldn't be a problem.

I've always been able to emulate Master System, Mega Drive and NES games without a problem, but SNES could be flaky at times. Once you get into 32-bit it becomes very difficult. PS1 emulation is actually pretty good but the PS1 has very simple architecture which helps with that. N64 emulation is much better now than it used to be, but can still be hit and miss. Saturn emulation is still shit but the Saturn's architecture was ridiculously complicated and most developers couldn't get to grips with it, let alone hobbyists. I haven't even attempted emulation past the 32-bit era, but I know it does exist. I've got a Hard Drive/Free McBoot setup on my PS2 so don't require emulation for that, I have Dolphin installed on one of my Wiis to run Gamecube stuff and an original softmodded XBOX to run those games. Past the 16-bit generation it's probably best to just go with the original hardware (although as aforementioned PS1 emulation is actually very good).

Yeah, that, Dragon Force, Shining Wisdom, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Mega Man X3, Magic Knight Rayearth, Guardian Force, Burning Rangers... all crazy expensive (and half of them not even that good!). Would be cool to play them using a flash drive though. Saturn emulation is still pretty shit so the original console is still really the only way to go to get a proper experience.

I had the same experience with Nyambe. I think his stats are probably a bit better in FM19 but on 18 he still has very good physical stats, which is perfect for the RWB position I utilise. He was excellent all the way to PL level, but eventually I sold him for something like £12m to a german team. He proceeded to be useless for them and ended up leaving on a free I think. I brought him back for a season as 3rd choice backup and despite being 31 or 32 he was still very solid purely because his physical attributes hadn't declined much. I then sold him to Burnley and he was a part of their relegation squad, so good times all around really. Usually I can get around players asking for wage increases by just telling them 'the club can't afford it' (despite having literally a billion in the bank) but when contracts come due it can be really annoying. Especially if it's a player who is 28/29 who wants a 4 year deal on £200k+ a week. I know by the end of the contract he'd be worthless so end up just selling instead. I had a RWB recently who had literally just broken into the team as a first teamer asking for £350k p/w with a £6m loyalty bonus and £12m agent fee to extend his contract. He was on £59k p/w previously and still only 22! He was happy at the club and my relationship with the agent was good so no idea why he was asking for such an insane amount. Very irritating and IMV unrealistic, but nonetheless I ended up selling him and giving somebody else a shot. The wage at his new club was £130k p/w ? In the past I've always bounced around clubs as well, I think this is one of the few games where I've just stuck at one club for the entire game. I've thought about leaving but then look at all the youth prospects I've signed and think, nope, got to stick around to see them tear it up in a few years. At around the 2045 mark I actually managed Chelsea (who had deriorated to a mid-table PL team) with a second persona just to see if I could dethrone myself. Turns out I couldn't. Finished 2nd for a few seasons then retired my second persona as it was taking too bloody long to manage two teams. FM in VR would be very interesting. I always play the games with commentary only, but if they added an option for you to be on the touchline watching the game in VR I'd definitely make use of that feature! I doubt SEGA have the resources or expertise necessary to implement that in all honesty, but it would be awesome nonetheless. Maybe one day.

I'm always a bit reluctant to give a player any more than £175k a week. For some of my best players I'll go up to £275-300k but that's my limit and usually only a handful of first teamers get that. If a player is being unreasonable with wage demands (or asking for a stupid loyalty/agent fee) I'll just sell them and promote a replacement. Part of the problem with giving a player a huge wage (particularly if the contract extends to when they are 29 or older) is that it becomes hard to sell him at the end of their contract as nobody wants to pay the wage. I think FM18 must be the edition before transfer fees and wages really exploded as you generally don't see anyone on more than £350-400k a week max, even top players. Similarly transfer fees for the best players rarely exceed more than £100m. My highest fee in terms of selling is £135m and that was way back in 2029. He was a great player and a first teamer but I couldn't turn down that money! My wage budget is 5.5m a week but I'm only using 3.7m of it at the moment. I do like picking up older legends on frees, especially if their stats are still decent. I can remember years ago I was managing Watford and brought in Messi on a free when his contract expired at Barca. I think he was 33 at the time but still an absolute beast, racked up a ton of goals and assists. I had to pay a crazy wage but it was worth it for a couple of years for the novelty if nothing else. Yeah I'd agree that the dropping of stats can sometimes be very unrealistic. I can understand it if a player isn't playing regularly, but sometimes despite being a first teamer with no injury issues a player's attributes will suddenly drop hugely over the summer and they'll be near useless afterwards. Now granted I am sure there are a few cases in real life where that does happen, but it's usually with players who have injury or general fitness problems. Part of the reason I move players on around the 30 year old mark is because I don't trust the game to not suddenly wreck them! The agent dynamic is there in FM18 as well but it seems a bit random. Sometimes an agent will "hate" me even though I've had no dealings with him, making buying his clients almost impossible. Then other times agents who have a good relationship with me will ask for crazy fees in the £10m+ range. I'm in a position now where if I ask a player to sack an agent they pretty much always will, but even when that happens the agent's relationship status with me doesn't change which seems unlikely. I imagine they have refined it more in subsequent releases though.

I always make an effort to bring former players in on coaching/scouting staff if possible. I've got a number of former players in various staff roles but most of them are regens so no names that anybody other than me would recognise! It's pretty weird when you get to the stage where former regen players are now your staff (and every so often managing teams you face) but just another facet of the game that makes it feel so deep and complex. Signing wonderkids from South America and various European leagues is definitely the way to go. I've signed a ton of players for under £1m and they've either become first team regulars or been sold for £20m+ after a few years out on loan or on the subs bench. My transfer budget at this point is a billion every season so I pretty much sign up any highly rated youngster recommended by my scouts. Leaves me with about 30 players out on loan, Chelsea style, but you get huge gains from those you sell on (usually for major profit) and those who end up in the first team haven't cost much at all as their wages are paid for whilst they're out on loan and they've usually been brought in for a pittance. Of my current first team none cost more than £9.5m, with most being in the £3-6m range. My highest valued player is a Welsh lad at £78m and he cost £135k from Newport County. Following up on former players when they leave the club is always interesting too. At the end of most seasons I go back through players sold to see how they're getting on. Another layer that keeps the game so weirdly fascinating. Every so often a former player will be out of contract and if they still have decent stats and I have a backup spot I'll sign them back for a swansong. I've usually got so many good younger players coming through that even selling a first teamer isn't a big deal as there are plenty of other players ready to take their place. Typically I'll look to sell a player when they hit 30 as that's when their stats and value typically begins to decline. There are some occasions when a player is so good that I keep them on, though. One of my current DC's is 32 but will leave when his contract expires at the end of the season. Stats are still good but time to let a younger player have a shot. Some players physical stats totally fall off around the 30/31 mark though, Charlie Mulgrew style. Suddenly almost all their physical stats are below 10 and their value plummets!

Considering it mostly comprises of looking at data screens, FM does have an amazing ability to suck you in. In my current game it's October 2063. VAR was never implemented. I started this game on 8th February 2019 so have been running it for over a year, definitely the longest save I've ever done. In-game I am 76 years old and have been managing Rovers for roughly 46 years. Dunny was my assistant manager until he turned 73 and finally retired. 65 year old Ryan Nyambe is my current assistant. The only other 'real' players on my coaching staff are Richarlison who has been a fitness coach since 2048 and Dominic Calvert-Lewin who has been a scout since 2054. The club recently upgraded to a 117,000 seater stadium which cost £800m. I had a brief stint as England manager from 2034/2035 but the options available to me in terms of players were pretty awful so I let somebody else deal with that shit. Competition wins are pretty healthy ? A largely successful career IMHO in terms of the PL is hasn't changed that much in all honesty, but I've seen Man Utd and Man City (twice) get relegated in the past few seasons which was nice. Both bounced back up unfortunately. Burnley were in the PL for a while but have been on the decline in the last 20 years or so and are now just an average League 1 team which is pleasing.

Tbf I've had the same thought when watching some modern WWE events.

Traditionally football management games haven't done very well on consoles, I think that's pretty much the only reason. Honestly I wouldn't buy it on console as I'm too used to playing it on PC/Laptop now, but whether there is a market there in modern day is up for debate. The only question I'd have regarding putting FM on consoles is how well a PS4/XBOX/Switch could handle the processing involved. I won't profess to understand the differences between console and computer processors, but I wonder whether that is a factor? I imagine they could still optimise the game for console even if it was an issue though. One of my exes from many years ago really hated FM. Think it would have either been 07 or 08 at the time. She said more than once that I was more interested in FM than her. In retrospect she was probably right tbh, but I have no regrets.

I really liked FM11, I was playing that all the way through until FM15 when I finally upgraded. Granted there were long periods where I wasn't playing it, but it was an excellent instalment. I can't speak for the latest versions of FM, but honestly as far as 18 is concerned there's no requirement to tinker extensively. If you want to micro-manage everything then the options are there to do so, but personally I assign my assistants and coaches to training, press conferences, youth teams, friendlies etc. I use the same tactic for every match and never have to mess around with it. I basically just deal with transfers, team selection, match day and discipline. Although the game seems to think I'm a bit too eager on the disclipline front as somehow I'm rated 22 on discipline, despite the max rating technically only going up to 20

Yeah I've got an 8bitdo wireless six button for the Mega Drive Mini and it works perfectly. Really good quality controllers. I'll definitely be grabbing one of those Saturn flash cards when they're available! It's pretty expensive to get ahold of the better Saturn games and I'm not really up for paying upwards of £70 for them. It's cheaper to buy the Japanese versions of most of these games and with a RAM cart you can bypass the region lock on the console - a bit of a faff to play a game though!

Also a few useful links I found during this latest playthrough: https://joyceychen.com/persona5-negotiation/ - gives best answers to give during negotiations. It wasn't 100% for P5R due to the new content but still had 95% of the right answers. https://old.reddit.com/r/Persona5/comments/6ba2x1/english_flowershop_bouquet_guide/ - correct flower combinations if you get a part time job at the flower shop (good way to raise the kindness stat) https://samurai-gamers.com/persona-5/answers-class-questions/ - classroom question answers, useful as some of these are stupidly obscure/Japan specific. Also if you hit the touchpad on the PS4 controller before answering it'll show you what other players answered to the question - pretty much gives you the answer. https://chinhodado.github.io/persona5_calculator/index.html#/list - fusion calculator. Useful if you want to know how to fuse a specific persona.

Yeah if you get into an ambush situation it can be bad times, especially if Joker has a weakness the enemies target repeatedly. I just finished P5R and then realised I didn't rank up the necessary people to unlock the new content ? I've got a save from an earlier Palace but it's some way back. I guess I'd rather reload that then play the entire game again though. I managed to do every palace in one day (securing the route) so I guess it shouldn't take that long if I fast forward through all the other scenes. Still a pain though. @Bigdoggsteel pro-tip, rank up the doctor at the clinic ASAP. You can buy an item from her at around level 5 called SP Adhesive 3. It is extremely useful for pretty much the entire game. It restores 7 SP per turn in battle, which is a life saver if you're trying to get through a palace quickly and don't want to burn through SP items. I always buy at least 4 to apply to every active party member. They are a bit expensive but once you get the doctor up to level 7 the price gets significantly discounted. Kawakami (the teacher) is another one you'll want to try to rank up to level 10 as soon as possible. Once she's at level 10 you get the ability to go out in the evenings after you've been to mementos or a palace. Very useful for ranking up confidants. In terms of the rest of the non-phantom thieves: Chihaya (the fortune teller) - her abilities aren't that useful tbh. Caroline & Justine (the prison guards) - have very useful abilities but are difficult to rank up. Not really necessary to complete the game. Iwai (gun store owner) - his ranks are all about gun customisation, I never bother with it. Ohya (journalist) - her rank up abilities are all centred around lowering the warning levels in palaces. Again not one I bother with as I find the character annoying anyway and I never get close to triggering 100% alert in palaces. Oda (kid in the arcade) - again all about gun upgrading. At first rank you learn down shot which is actually pretty useful, but outside of that not important unless you really like the gun mechanic. Togo (shogi player in church) - has a ton of useful battle aids during rank ups, definitely worth getting all the way to 10 if you can. Mishima (phansite owner/school friend) - another really irritating character but his rank ups are worth doing for sure. The higher you rank him up the more EXP your party gets in battles. Yoshida (politician giving speeches in station square) - makes negotiating with shadows easier and allows you to get more stuff from them. Doesn't have any major impact if you don't rank him up but I did find his abilities useful. For me in terms of importance ranking up I'd go with: Takami (doctor) Kawakami (teacher) Togo (shogi player in church) Mishima (phansite owner/school friend) Then whoever you want after that. Those four are definitely the most useful.

I got the tactic I'm using off the SI forums a few years ago, has always worked a charm. Goes without saying due to the date all of the players are regens. I'm assuming the match engine has changed enough on FM20 to make a tactic like this unusable though.

Probably using a tactic from the SI forums ( https://community.sigames.com/ ) There are always tactics available there which effectively explot weaknesses in the match engine and make the game a lot easier.

The Fink had a great voice, always takes me back to the Attitude Era. A lot of people like him but for some reason Justin Roberts' voice kind of annoys me. I know he takes his job very seriously and his book was really interesting, but personally not a fan. I actually prefer Dasha who is doing ring introductions for AEW at the moment.

I'm still on FM18! Will probably upgrade for FM21.

WWE have announced a big talent cut as a result of COVID19 - from Reddit: Biggest surprise there are The Good Brothers (only recently re-signed), Mike Chioda (employed at WWE since 1989), Rowan, Rusev and Logan. The rest generally aren't being used and I had forgotten the likes of Epico and Primo were even around. WWE sure did fuck up Rusev though - over like crazy with the Rusev Day thing but they just buried him. I didn't think this week's AEW was as good as previous efforts. Jericho was a bit too cute on commentary, the matches were lacklustre, the main even went on way too long - especially considering Jake Hager isn't that good, and overall the show felt like AEW Dark with a Dynamite main event slapped on to the end.

Fantastic news, fingers crossed the recovery continues going well and Paul is out of hospital soon.

From what I heard they weren't even able to get a lot of their pre-orders out on time so that doesn't surprise me. I never pre-order from Amazon. ShopTo is my go to - always competitive in price and have always gotten stuff out to me really quick. They got P5R out to me 4 days before the release date, and apparently they were shipping FF7R out a week before release. I ordered from gamecollection instead as they were cheaper (and I didn't need it that quickly tbh) but most of the time I go with ShopTo. Thanks, that's really useful. I wish there was more Saturn stuff available (in general) as it's one of the only older consoles that doesn't have a huge amount of mods available.

I believe this instalment covers Midgar so I assume it'll end after the gang infiltrate the Shinra building.

A brief vid I took of the Sector 5 slums from above.