Setting the weights for the Lineup Tool and the Player’s Tactics table

I’m writing this guide years after the release of the Tactics editor. I’ve said to myself, better late than never šŸ™‚

But what is the Tactics Editor? The Tactics Editor is a window that can be accessed from the Tools menu. Values contained here influence the scores displayed in the Lineup Tool and the values displayed in the Tactics page of the main Window.

Using Lineup Tool is not easy, firstly because it provides results that are not balanced. For example, it seems that Through Pass (or Filtering, or Passaggi Filtranti) seems always a preferred tactics respect to others.

This result is quite normal. I’ve just applied the rules I’ve read from the manual trying to translate statements in numbers. Well, I’ve to say I didn’t work much on number, even because I’ve started a new project in the while. But at least, I missed to describe how you can play with Lineup numbers, then (thanks to US Grosseto, that recall me this topic) I’ve decided to write this short guide.

You can modify the weights (you have to, the actual values are just an example and not the best example, I’ve put some effort to build all this structure, not to improve it) both directly on the editor and copying and pasting (and back) the values on excel (or google sheets), or editing directly the ascii files whose path is indicated in the header of the Tactics editor window.

The Lineup Tool

The Lineup tool is one of the TmRecorder tools available. It allows you to create a lineup and to evaluate it, basing on the skills of each player and where the player is placed in the pitch.

The Tactics Efficacy panel

The tactics efficacy panel, on the top right, shows a table of numbers that by principle should allow the user to decide which lineup is the best, basing on which lineup and which tactics get the best score. Values in this panel are computed on the base of the values contained in the Tactics Editor.

The result is computed using the following idea:

  • Basing on the tactics, you have a given probability to develop a given type of action;
  • Basing on the action, you have a given probability to construct the action and a probability to finalize it;
  • The attack score is based on a combination of the probability to develop a given action, construct it and finalize it;
  • The defend score is based on a combination of the probability that the opposite team develop a given action (given its tactics) and the probability you intercept it. The gk capability to stop a given action is not taken into account.

Given this idea, you can modify the following table to change the way the score is computed:

  • Tactics -> Action table: It contains the percentage of the probability that a given attacking style or tactics (Std= Balanced, Dir= Counterattack, Win= Wings, Sho= Short passages, Lon= Long passages, Thr= Through passages) convert to a given action (Cor= Corner, Cro= Cross, Dir=Counter attack, Fil= Filtering or Through passage, Fre= Freekick, Lon= Long Passages, Pen= Penalties, Sho = Short Passages). This table has been computed collecting some statistics (not much, to be true) on the matches.
  • Action Construction: It contains the probability that a given action type (column “Tactics”) brings a finalization, based on the skills of the player. The players positions selected to contibute to the probability are listed in the FPos column. Sometimes an action type has more than a row because the weight to be used for different positions are very different. About this table, maybe it could be a good idea to normalize it (normalization means that each row has the same sum).
  • Action Finalization: as in the previous table, it contains the probability that a given action, once constructed, is finalized. This doesn’t mean that a goal is scored, being the opposite GK not in the count. As in the previous table, each position has a given contribute to the total tactics score. Surprisingly, this table still doesn’t contain information about the Freekick and Penalties. You can add it on your own.
  • Defense: It contains values to compute the best lineup to face to the opposite team’s strategy. It still contains coefficients that translate into the final score.

The Tactics table on the main page

In these tables, the Tactics column define which tactics is the destination of the row. The DorA column indicates (when 0) that the row cointains number for the evaluation of the defence score, when 1 the row contains number for the attack evaluation score.

The Fav.Position column indicates which position (player) on the pitch are involved in the evaluation of the related number. When more than one row has the same target (defined by the couple [Tactics,DorA]), it means that their values are added to form the tactics efficacy score.

The Field Player Tactics table

To compute the score, the values of the row related to each skill is multiplied by the skill of the player, if the player position is listed in the Fav. Position column. The result of the multiplication for all the players whose the position is listed in the column are summed together, to form the tactics score for each player.

The table involved in the computation of the player’s score are the following:

  • The Field Player Tactics: It defines how each tactics is influenced by the skills of the players, depending of their position in the pitch.
  • The GK Tactics: It defines how the GK with its skills influences the scores, for each tactics;
  • The Possession table: It defines how the skill of each players influences the ball keeping (holding possession of the ball) and gaining (taking possession of the ball from the opposite team);

Leonardo Daga

Author of TmRecorder, since 2010

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