Noobish question about nations

Hello there. I'm new here in case you can't tell.

I've only recently bought FM2011 which is the first one in the series I've purchased so I'm a bit of a newcomer to these games I'm ashamed to say.

Anyway back to my question. This will sound a bit stupid to some but I need some confirmation from the people who actually play the game.

When I start a new game I know that what nation I select represents where I can manage teams in my career. So say I only select England as a playable nation, once I begin will I then only be able to buy players from England? Or do I have access to all the players in the world? Is the number of players in the database the exact number I have to choose from or is it just representative?

Apologies if this sounds confusing. Maybe I'm just stupid?

Thanks to anyone that can help.

you will be able to sign players from other countries but be aware that only loading leafues from england will limit the number of players you can see in other countries. You will have four databse options, small, medium, large and custom where you can alter the number of players from the games database that will show up in the game.

I'm not totally sure as to how the small, medium and large databases decide which players to load but i would imagine its largely to do with reputation in reagards to players from countries you haven't loaded. So for example a large database with only leagues from england loaded will still have players from big reputation leagues from around the world whilst a small databse might only load the players from large reputation clubs from unloaded leagues.

I'm sure someone else can help you more, welcome to the forums.

My only advice is to load up as many leagues, as large a database, and retain as many nations as your computer can manage This makes for a much better FM experience.

But saying this, it depends on what type of management you prefer. ie. Man Utd and Dorchester are completely different. You might not need the likes of Brazil and Ukraine loading up if you're in the lower leagues.

Depending on how powerful computer you have (dual core 2.5ghz (I think)/6gb ram/max 3d rating here), I would recommend a Large database with around 60 000 players. I usually add Argentina, Brazil, England, Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Holland, Portugal, Ukraine, Russia and choose only the top division in all but the "top 4" nations. If I start in England, I choose all leagues there, and if I start in the lower leagues of England I also choose Scotland, Wales, Ireland and N.Ireland top divisions.

There is little difference between 1 star "game speed" and 2-3 stars. The game becomes so much better the more players you have in the database that it is worth having to wait a bit between games.

Thanks for the replies so far.

My laptop is a few years old but very good I think (of course I'm biased). Acer Aspire 6920G. Intel Core 2 Duo processor T5750 2GHz. ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650. 3GB RAM. I have installed the game, patched it and it runs perfectly fine.

For my first career I want to manage a team in the Blue Sq Bet North as it's my towns local team and it's a bit of a challenge. Is a large database not needed for a small team like that? Or should I just select as large database as I can, should my team be promoted to the premiership (one can dream).

I don't mind waiting for the game to process a huge database. A simpler way of asking my first question is if I only select European nations, do I then have access to players from the US, for example?

You'll still have access to US player. But perhaps there won't be as many.

The advantage of loading up extra leagues is that the games are all worked out by the AI, and therefore the stats and data are more realistic. And obviously you'll get a much wider range of players.

Thanks.

I started a new game and selected about 8 nations from Europe (can't even remember them all) and a large database. I'm only managing a tiny team but it feels more realistic having access to a bigger number of players.

When you start in the lowest playable league in England, it is important to bring in Scotland, Wales, Ireland and N.Ireland as those are the leagues you will be able to scout. When a league is selected as playable, all the matches there are calculated properly, and the teams included in the league have full squads. If you go look at Chicago in the US for example, you'll see that they have lots of greyed out players who don't really exist and the club won't have a league which you can click on to watch how they are doing. This means that they don't play real matches and the players therefore rarely reach their full potential in such leagues. The benefit usually is that their value is lower so they could be cheaper to buy.

Once, me and a friend started a game on my slow laptop computer (online I think) and therefore we chose only the English leagues to make it go faster. After one and a half seasons we found that the game was incredibly boring as there were no players to buy (only English ones). We started a new game with all the major leagues and a large database, and the game progressed slower but it was still much better because we could actually find players to buy.

So yes, I believe 8 nations (and how many leagues?) is good, but your computer should be able to cope with more. I play like 16-17 nations and 22-27 leagues, but have twice the RAM memory and a newer allround setup. I would say that you would benefit from adding Argentina and Brazil (top divisions) to your setup, and maybe two more European nations.

I chose all the leagues for each nations. Mainly chosen for reallism (it'd be a bit odd with leagues missing I think) and also to increase the number of players available.

I think at the moment I currently have England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Holland as playable. All with top leagues. SO that's 9 not 8