Playing Style
For every game that you play you can choose to play in one of five playing styles
- Positive,
- Neutral,
- Negative,
- Adaptive or
- Diamond style.
The effects that these styles have are associated with your playing formation as described below, and only certain styles can be adopted, depending upon your chosen formation. Choosing a playing style that does not match the requirements of a formation with those played will result in not only the lack of any gain, but in the loss of any possible style gain that the formation could have been used with.
To use a POSITIVE playing style, your team must be prepared to break forwards at every possibly opportunity, throwing men forward whenever the chance is offered. This will result in many more attacking runs, but tends to leave the men at the back exceptionally vulnerable. For the formation to work, you need to play with a full forward line of 5 attackers (the maximum). This means that players such as the DF/A will not be able to add their own skills to the attack, and that your Sweeper will doubtless be too busy filling in a role as a normal Defender to be much use in a Sweeper’s normal capacity.
Formations that qualify are…
- 2-3-5,
- 3-2-5, and
- SW-2-2-5 (with a SW selected, though he will only count as a DF).
If the style is successfully adopted, then five levels are added to the Forwards total skill levels.
If you play NEUTRALLY with your side, then you are really asking the players to fill in where they are needed. Basically, they will tend to drift to wherever they see weaknesses, though this will not necessarily be where they are most needed. The Neutral style, if successfully adopted, will gain you a bonus of five skill levels in your lowest skilled area, after category (Skill, Power or P/S) additions. For this tactic to work, your side must be structured so that the number of players in any one outfield area does not out-number another area by more than one player.
Formations that qualify are…
- 3-3-4,
- 4-3-3,
- 3-4-3,
- SW-3-3-3
When a player opts to play a NEGATIVE game, he tends to draw back his players and try to block efforts on his own goal with sheer weight of numbers. This tactic is all about getting bodies behind the ball, and tends to result in a more compact, solid defence. To use the tactic effectively, you must have more than 3 defenders (including SW if selected) and only 2 attackers playing in the match.
Formations that qualify are…
- 4-4-2,
- SW-3-4-2,
- 5-3-2.
If the style is successfully implemented, the team will gain five skill levels added to its defensive totals.
With an ADAPTIVE style, the idea is to play a side that closes down your opponent’s chances, rather than gain you any additional attacking strength. It is a useful tactic to adopt if playing a team you know little about, and as with all other options, this style will provide you with five extra levels. However, the location of these levels is not something you can predict in advance, as they will be allocated to the area in which your team is most overpowered. For example, if your defence is likely to leak the most shots in the chosen match, the five levels will be pushed into that position, if it’s your midfield, then they will gain them, and finally, if your Forwards are finding it difficult to hold back the thrusting runs of the opposing defenders, they will be added there.
This style only tends to be effective if you are not overwhelmingly more powerful than your opponents, and the only formation that will allow the tactic to work 4-2-4.
This lets the players in both attack and defence drift towards the centre of the park to help close down attacks through the creative play of the opposition.
The DIAMOND style allows a side to adopt a primarily defensive posture while giving the team the ability to “hit on the break” almost. The main problem is that Kickabout only has three outfield areas, so formations like 4-3-2-1 are not really on. What closest fits the diamond style is something like many reallife sides now play, with two midfielders tending to play as left and right wing men, attacking more often than dropping into defence.
If you want to use the Diamond playing style you must field a side playing with a 3-5-2 formation. The bonus levels gained are still the same five (as with other styles) and are going to be applied to your FW line. The down-side to choosing this playing style, which at first seem to have more benefits that some others, is that even with a five man midfield the team is unable to affectively operate an offside game, as the “wing men” in midfield are more often rushing up the field to assist an attack than sitting back waiting to catch the opponents offside.
Note: If both options ARE selected, then both the offside tactic and the Diamond formation are lost, simulating the players caught, trying to do two jobs, and doing neither at all.
There is no point selecting a particular playing style if your team does not conform to the formations that allow its use. For example, by selecting a 4-3-3 line-up, and then selecting Positive as your playing style, you are losing out on the levels you might gain by choosing a legal style. Some formations might not fall into any playing style bracket, so be careful when making your selections. If no style is entered, then no bonus will be gained, regardless of whether the team fits a particular style or not. Occasionally you might want this to be the case, such as when you play 2-4-4 or SW-2-3-4 for example.
See also…