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Okay, so this thread has been requested, and hopefully this will answer most of people's questions about the mysterious econ-farming.
First, the term comes from travian, another online game, where you can raid your opponents for resources to help your own village....if you do this consistently to one or more villages, it is called "farming." Lately I’ve spent way too much time playing travian, so the term econ-farming immediately popped into my head the first time I had to call my method something. Basically the idea is that you're getting "free" resources, in this case econs, by using the technique.
First of all, you do need some start-up money to get the farming process going....you're going to invest that cash and hope to get back a profit on your investment at a later date. Fortunately, as long as you do it right, econ farming does not involve much risk of losing money. The amount of start-up money needed varies based on how many econ farms you want to have in your team at once, which in turn varies on how many empty spots you can afford to have in your squad. Keep in mind that none of your farms should ever start a game, expect in extremely dire situations....basically they're just taking up space. Thankfully, with max of 20 players to a squad, it's likely you have a bit of extra space in your squad. Let's assume you want to have two econ farms in your squad to start. You probably want about 4-5 million econs to play around with to get the two. Make sure you leave a bit for other purposes though; you don't want econ farming to put a halt to all other financial practices, keep up your normal training and win bonus routine.
Okay, so we have 4-5 million.....now comes the tricky part. You have to use that money to find, evaluate, and buy two under-evaluated players. Under-evaluated is the key word here, obviously. If they are not under-evaluated, then you won't be able to make a nice profit. There are several different methods for finding under-evaluated players without having to evaluate dozens of players, but I’ll let you figure those out on your own. I'll give one big hint though.....it would be almost impossible to econ-farm in private league (there's one big difference between Xpert League transfer markets and private league transfer markets).
Here are some tips when you're looking for good farms-
1. Try to stick to younger players if you can.....typically people are more interested in buying young players, which makes it easier for you when you go to sell them later.
2. Try to stick to fairly cheap players, especially at first when you're just getting started. For instance, don't go buy a 20/9 striker as your first farm. Generally, I’ve found that 18/5, 19/5, 20/5, 19/6, and 20/6 players (their listed age/skill ratio, not their real one) are the best age to look for as possible farms. Later on, when you've gone through the cycle a few times, you can try going for 8-9 skill players if you so chose, though I usually don't.
3. Most important thing to remember when buying econ farms -buy players with SQs. Today's market it crazy for SQs, and marking sure every farm has at least one, preferably two, insures that when the time to sell them comes, you're guaranteed a good and quick sale. You may have to pay a little more for them initially, but the price with exponentially increase with SQs, so pay the extra bit for those SQs.
Now that you know what to look for, it's time we talk about how you make the money. Now, you'd think that farming would involve training and looking for jump in the CR, but that's the wrong way to do things if you're looking for a sure profit. First off, the fact that they jumped a skill bar in the transfer means they're likely not to go up in the next CR, which just makes it a waste of money. Second, you have to play those players to get 100% ME, and you also have to train them like crazy to get their average form up. All that is a pain in the butt. The right way to do it is to buy and sell your farms within the same season, so that they don't have the chance to go down in skill, or not increase, in the CR. Also, since you know you don't need to worry about their CR, you don't need to bother with playing them or training them. After you buy your econ farm, you sit him on the bench, wait the minimum 1 month he has to be at the club, and then sell him immediately. Quick and simple money! There are a few things to keep in mind though, First, don't waste too much evaluating, it will eat in to your profits. Second, make sure you're selling your farm for atleast double what you bought him for to ensure you're making a profit....remember, you had to pay for an agent fee when you bought the player, but you don't get that money when you sell him, the agent does. Last, and most importantly (I always make this mistake ), don't buy farms too late in the season that you can't sell them before the transfer market closes, otherwise they're go through that CR you didn't want them to, and you'll likely lose a bit of money when you end up selling them the next season. The transfer market closes two week prior to the end of the season; add the minimum four weeks a player has to be at the club, and that's 6 weeks. So as a rule of thumb, don't buy econ farms after the midway point in the season, just to be safe. That still give you time to do two rounds of econ farming each season, if you start right after the CR. Generally, I’ll buy 2-3 farms the week after the CR, sell them around week 5, use some of that money to buy 2-3 new farms, save what's left, then sell those second farms around week 9, and save the profit for spending and more farms next season.
You can get farms pretty cheap, and sell them for a very nice profit most of the time. My best was a 19/6 I bought for about 2 million who sold for over 8 million. That's the best buy/sell ratio I’ve had so far, but the most cash I’ve made on one farm has been about 8 million from an 18/6 with 3 SQs. Even a 20/6 with one SQ, who you can probably get for under a million, will likely yield at least 2-3 million in profits(who actually evaluates 20/5 skills anyways?). If you have 2-3 of them, you're talking about 8-9 million profits in one month just by letting them sit on your bench! It's a pretty easy thing to do, and very profitable. Right now, even after buying a nice new 23/9 defender this season, I have 46 million econs right now....most of which are profits from 4-5 sessions of econ farming, and that's not even counting the two farms I still have yet to sell.
Wow that's a lot, for those of you that take the time to read it and have questions, feel free to voice them and I’ll do my best to answer.
Also, this process is a work in progress, i'm still learning as i go. If you think something could work better differently then i've suggested, i'd appreciate your ideas! Also, if i've forget something, feel free to add.
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