Scouting Knowledge and lower leagues

As we now can manage down to pretty much local pub leagues thanks to mods, we are seeing people signing players from across the country for their team in Cornwall, Westmorland or Kent. Am I the only one who finds it a tad unrealistic that a team playing in the Rumble's Fish Bar Third Division South West would be able to sign a player, no matter how awful he is, who spent his last year at a team playing hundreds of miles away.

One or two is fair enough, as we all move around a lot more these days, but squads of players from elsewhere? We'd simply not have the scouting knowledge of anywhere outside the immediate area, I can't imagine teams even as high as Level 7 being able to realistically scout much further than 100 miles or so.

As a result, I think scouting knowledge needs to become more locality based to force more realistic signings at super low league level. As a team gets bigger, it will naturally gain a larger sphere of influence and knowledge.

At the other end of the scale, I think knowledge works fine, but maybe the search function could utterly disable the possibility of looking at players we can't scout legit?

This is quite a valid point. Alot of the clubs at that level are semi-pro or amateur. So Joe Bloggs won't live in Scotland yet travel down to Cornwall every game for a match.

I could be wrong. But I'm sure DJ Campbell, when playing for Yeading used to be a delivery driver and he used to have to travel alot for his job. Yet he still played for Yeading. So I guess it could happen.

it is something which should be implemented in the game, although i get the feeling it would be hard to code.

might mess up my knockbreda save next season though

I agree 100% with the OP. My local non-league is the Wessex league and I keep an eye on what goes on with my birth town team, Poole Town. In the real world they don't sign players from outside the area, or very rarely anyway. When they do it's via contacts who might have gone on to manage bigger and better teams. Even then it will usually be the south of England. A big part of their team appears to be ex-youth players from the local big team, AFC Bournemouth, and players that circulate the Wessex league clubs.

A big part of this is obviously that these players are part timers who have jobs in the local area. Someone is not going to give up their job in Westmorland to go and play for Poole Town. It just doesn't work like that.

In my current game I was shocked to see the likes of Poole and Wimborne release all their start of game players and sign in players from as far afield as Australia. Poole Town are unlikley to be scouting Australia.

~~~

On the other hand I can see that this doesn't matter for everyone. Most people aren't playing down to level 8 or 9 and those clubs are not able to rise up the ladder in to the playable leagues. Only teams from level 7 can do so. At that level it is somewhat more likely that a player will move across country to sign for a team. We are starting to get in to the relams of some teams being professional, or at least having players who are. So does it matter if the likes of Poole Town and Wimborne Town release all their players and get an unknown from Australia?

It does, but it isn't going to affect the game as a whole. I'd still like to see more depth added to the scouting network. There would be no harm in letting a team from Dorset scout only the south of England. I'm not sure how detailed they can make it though, not without making things overly complex for people who only play the original playable leagues.

Perhaps it is something they can allow modders to influence and change for add ons.

Regions is probably something that will appear in future FMs i think as it can help with all kinds of things; transfers, scouting, friendly matches. If i was to manage my local team, Prescot Cables down in Level 8, then i'd obviously expect to scout the Merseyside area and pick up players from Liverpool/Everton acadmies that might slip by the wayside, as well as arrange friendlies against Marine, Southport, Tranmere, Liverpool/Everton reserves etc.

Regions is probably something that will appear in future FMs i think as it can help with all kinds of things; transfers, scouting, friendly matches. If i was to manage my local team, Prescot Cables down in Level 8, then i'd obviously expect to scout the Merseyside area and pick up players from Liverpool/Everton acadmies that might slip by the wayside, as well as arrange friendlies against Marine, Southport, Tranmere, Liverpool/Everton reserves etc.

Yeah, maybe SI should introduce regional scouting knowledge hidden under national scouting knowledge (though it should be able to be visible if adjusted in settings).

Personally I don't see it as a big problem, but I can also see that it is odd when a level 9 club gets two bulgarians and a romanian on a free transfer.

The issue with scouting, I think, is that FM isn't really designed for level 8-11 leagues. Probably because it is too difficult to simulate properly. This is also seen in the various mods where reserve teams enter local cups etc.

Having each country divided into smaller regions, and coding it so semi-pros and amateurs will most likely not leave their region, is too much work for the return it gives a "small handful" of gamers.

Yeah, maybe SI should introduce regional scouting knowledge hidden under national scouting knowledge (though it should be able to be visible if adjusted in settings).

It'll be introduced one day i think, it's not too difficult to code in, it just means introducing a new location field and then putting cities into these locations. Then you can code in various scenarios where players might prefer to stay in the region instead of moving to the opposite end of the country for the same contract and you can arrange realistic friendlies instead of games against foreign teams of the same calibre. I've never managed down in the lower leagues, but i'd imagine it'd add a great sense of realism.

Localised scouting is vital for lowly clubs. However it's worth noting that at the moment SI only support the game down to Conference North/South level.