International Journeyman

I've been reading Elrithral's It's not Terry's, it's mine - An international adventure this evening and enjoying it. I'd advise people to take a look at it because it's a good read and I hope Elrithral doesn't mind me linking to his story. Anyway, to the point...

I'm quite interested in having a bit of an International journeyman game at some point after being inspired by the above story. I was just wondering what people would recommend as the best setup for this kind of save?

I was thinking of just loading one league (say, the Premier League in England for instance) on a small database (so the speed should be really quick) but using the 'retain current international players' feature to get the international teams available for managing. I would use this option to retain current international players from every continent and so would pretty much have all countries that are possible to manage available. At least, this is how I think it would work. :confused:

Just wondered whether this would be the best way to set up the save, or whether there is a better way of doing it? What do people recommend?

I've never played an international management game like this but it sounds quite fun.

Cheers,

C.

I think the way that you suggested would work quite well if you were only interested in international management, if it works how we think it should..

I'm not sure all the options on "Database Size:Custom" but i'm sure you could pick and choose from that and get as many international players loaded as you desired.

Loading all the players would give you all the national players and stuff so you'd be fine in that sense, the only problem would be if you wanted to delve into club management, but if thats not the case, the setup you suggested is the one i'd go for.

Many thanks for the kind words and free publicity Crouchy

Have a read of THIS thread. I loaded Premier League only and small database, making sure that "Ultimate Retain All Players" was ticked in preferences, 90 nations available, plenty of newgens and processing is pretty quick. However, i'm using 09 so perhaps your method would be easier for 10.

The only problem I see is that your setup would include all players and there would probably be plenty of nations that you have no interest in managing, hogging valuable processing time and save game space. The Gills thread explains how to edit the "retain" file, so you can dictate what nations are available and those that aren't i.e. you can dump Qatar and add Togo, or vice versa.

The same file works in 08 and 09, I assume it would probably work with 06 and 07, but i'm not sure about 10. Good luck.

Thanks for the reply GazTheDoood. Yes, I would only be interested in international management. It sounds like quite a fun save and I fancy a go at this International journeyman lark, maybe just for something quick on the side of my Calcio career.

Thanks Elrithral. I'll take a look at that thread and see what I think.

Using the new 'retain international players' feature is actually very lightweight. As it is only loading in the international players, you're not actually putting that much strain on the system. Loading international players from every continent gives you 103 countries available to manage on a small database (111 on a large).

The only worry I have is regarding international squad depth (especially in the future) when using this particular method of retaining the players.

Cheers,

C.

I tried loading one league from each continent to see if that would make a difference and I ended up with 127 playable countries.

I can't say anything about 10, but on 09 and 08 squad depth improved with time. I managed Canada quite early in my save and I struggled to pick a 26 man squad that didn't include half a dozen players without a club, in 2023 there are twice as many players available and more than enough (club) first teamers to pick from.

You'll also find that a lot of the smaller nations get better and not just because of your management. In 2023 USA are number one in the world, Scotland number 2, Hungary number 7, Saudi Arabia number 10 and England number 34 Brazil haven't won anything in almost 20 years and i'm quite looking forward to managing them eventually.

Tbh 117 nations is too much, I have 90 available and intend on managing every single one, but i'm 7 nations in and have been playing the save since August

I'm going to run a quick holiday test on FM10 while I'm working today to see how it pans out using the 'retain current international players' option with a large database and just the Premier League in England loaded. I'll check on some of the minor nations and see whether they have problems with squad depth. Will report any findings back here if people are interested?

C.

Actually, I was thinking that perhaps using some of the other database customisation options (such as retain players at top clubs) might add more squad depth for each country.

It might also work out better to use the 'retain current international players' and 'retain players in top division' or 'retain players at top clubs' for each country.

Like you say, Elrithral, it's probably actually worth selecting the countries rather than just loading up whatever the games gives you from each continent. It does give you too many countries and some of them fall so far down the world rankings that they don't appear to have any fixtures at all.

It might be worth me generating my own list of countries based on the FIFA world rankings or something like that.

I'll have a play around this evening when I have finished work. I really better get on with some now!

C.