Retaining players vs playable leagues question

I want a good distribution of newgens in my savegame and is a bit unsure if its better to set a good amount of leagues as playable

or if its good enough to retain them.

My goal is to have a very realistic setup with leagues from nations that are connected to each other in terms of player markets and that

will mean that I end up with a lot of leagues. I also plan on playing a long-term game and want a stable database of players from around the world.

So are there any downsides when it comes to retaining players in terms of future newgens development?

What to remember is the game will try to keep the same number of players in the database at all times, so the more players you load at the start the more regens the game will create to keep the balance as current players retire.

What to remember is the game will try to keep the same number of players in the database at all times, so the more players you load at the start the more regens the game will create to keep the balance as current players retire.

I didnt know that Out of interest does it try to keep the balance of nationalities the same or will it be more random as time goes on? Cause my current save I retained alot of South Americans but have no playable leagues there, I have the main 6 European nations as playable. So over time will the focus shift from South America to Europe or stay the same cause currently id say theres slightly more South American youngsters.

I didnt know that Out of interest does it try to keep the balance of nationalities the same or will it be more random as time goes on? Cause my current save I retained alot of South Americans but have no playable leagues there, I have the main 6 European nations as playable. So over time will the focus shift from South America to Europe or stay the same cause currently id say theres slightly more South American youngsters.

Again it will try and keep a balance, you wont end up with a footballing world dominated by European's but you will most likely end up with more Europeans in the long run because you have loaded more European players to begin with.

I guess I just have to see how it goes in the long run. But I read in another topic on the forum about save-setups and some of them

loaded up a huge amount of playable leagues because they had the idea that this was the proper way to do it for a long-term game

and a better development of newgens. I dont know.

I dont have a crappy computer and can load up everything if I wanted to but I want to finish a season in a reasonable time.

My concern is that maybe some nations will be dry of players and that just the playable ones will have a good enough amount of players after several seasons.

Now I have set up top five european leagues as playable and almost all other european leagues as view only and retained all players off top division clubs. My hope is that this will keep the clubs more "active" since they now show up with their reserve teams too.

Right, not to blow my own trumpet, but i'm the perfect guy to ask this question!

I've been playing CM/FM since the beginning blah blah blah (well, its true!). Ever since "retain" players was possible, i've exploited it as much as possible. I'm the sort of manager who likes to start in the lower English leagues and work my way up. I'm also the sort of manager that detests buying English players, so find a lot of players by trawling the database, usually via obscure international teams or U21/U18 international teams. In order to do this, you need to retain as many players as you possibly can. As a downside, you need to run as few leagues as possible so that the game runs smoothly enough. I just run all the English leagues.

I'm pretty "old school" so I don't mind waiting after i've clicked continue. I dont expect the matches to come thick and fast.

So anyway, back to my point, try and retain players from all regions except for perhaps one. If you do this, it means that International teams will be populated with real players rather than "greys". I can't stand looking at the Angola U21's and seeing all greys! Personally I usually leave out Asia, mainly because its difficult to get EU players (or ones with enough caps to qualify for a work permit) from there.

In doing this I get the best personal experience from FM. Some like to swap countries and manage overseas, but if I want to do that I'll just start a new game. Usually though i'll just stay in England for 20-30 seasons. The regens worldwide are incredible.

Some additional info you may find useful:

If you are based in England, and need help building your lower league team, then forget the "player search" function. Visit these countries and look at their national teams & U21 sides. They are all EU friendly nations, so no work permit required.

However, you need to be running a large database and retaining all players, otherwise you will only find one or two players in each squad.

French Guyana (French)

Guadeloupe (French)

Martinique (French)

Reunion (French)

Mayotte (French)

Bermuda (English)

BVI (English)

Montserrat (English)

Anguilla (English)

Aruba (Dutch)

Netherlands Antilles (Dutch)

Pick up all sorts of players for free. Much better than those overpaid english.