Choosing correct db size

I have read on this forum that db size and number of active leagues directly influences transfer market activity and realism. I'm starting a new game, so I wonder what would be the correct db size for save with 49 active leagues (41 nation)? Official response would be greatly appreciated.

_Anyone?

I always play on the largest available - the selected leagues will automatically add players required - especially if you add the option to fill sides with "regens" where real players aren't generated (good for youth teams etc). I usually pick 14-16 nations and top 2 tiers in each of them. On past games, this was great to generate good transfer activity between AI clubs and my own.

However, on FM14 I am not happy with transfer activity... I seem to never get offers for players even when trying to offload them for free. The AI seem unaffected, and happily transfer between themselves, which is annoying for me.

That's what I'm afraid off, I would hate to discover two seasons in that there is lack of activity in transfer market. I'm am currently considering starting 49 leagues on small database. There should be some sort of build guide to help you choose correct database size.

I have never selected a small database, even on a slow rig. I always pick large as I am pretty sure bigger the better in terms of activity. Though of course it would run slower. The good thing is that you can always select/deselect leagues as you play as well as change detail levels if your game runs a little slow, sadly you can't change the database directly other than deselecting leagues.

I'm not worried about speed so I usually picked large database as well, but some recent posts by Cougar2010 made me think that wrong db size could unbalance transfer market:

I would always recommend loading the smallest database you can along with a good spread of active playable leagues, the more you load, the better the experience.

The transfer market is reasonably fine if you make the effort to balance your gameworld when you create your save.

I've never had a problem having an active transfer market on any version of FM and I have very few problems selling players (albeit you'll always get a few who are overpaid compared to their rep that you struggle to move).

The problem a lot of users experience is of their own making IMO. They load lots & lots of players into the database but then have only a small number of playable leagues. This leads to the market being flooded and far too many players in the gameworld compared to active teams. The knockon effect is that there are lots of unemployed players who you can pick up for nothing but the flipside is there is no-one to sell to.

SI can only do so much, users have to take some responsibility themselves for these sort of issues.

Honestly, I think that comment is overstated and your worries are too great. Just pick a large database and pick whatever leagues and enjoy what is a game that will no longer be patched. To blame players for transfer inactivity is just absurd because 99% of those unemployed players are utter rubbish and the game not only will eventually retire them within a season, but most won't go to the clubs we manager, say in the Championship or whatever.

If I have a 2 million pound player to sell, and he is on low wages - it is unthinkable no one would want him for free when offered out, all because the game decided to buy an obscure player for free because you chose a large database? The game should also try and attempt more player trades or accept trades, and any player you offer for free, in my mind would always get a bite or two in real life. Another problem is that other teams are buying players with similar stats my player has, and paying AI fees for them. So as stated, it seems AI to AI transfers happen very often, yet USER to AI is a whole different affair.

When people begin to blame the player for bugs in the game, I feel it is time to take a step back and rethink how things work in the game. Transfer activity is broken (in my mind) in FM2014, no matter the database size.

I completely disagree with Sydney666 here. If you use large db, you will have lot of options yourself when it comes to signing players, which can be fun, but so will AI clubs. Even with medium db, there are always some good players out there waiting as a free agent (so all free agent players being rubbish is a completely wrong statement - if anything, there are too many good players that are not signed by any club), and the longer they wait the lower they will demand, so AI clubs will always have those players to sign - not only for free but also for lower salaries, rather than buying your unwanted players.

Loading more active leagues will help though, since your are introducing more buyers into the market. But larger the db, the larger the supply, therefore a lot of free transfers, both for you and AI. Like I said, having more players in the game can be more fun (for some), but I always chose small db if I want a fast game and have only a few leagues active, and use medium db for my long term games where I have a lot active leagues.

On a side note: Whatever setup you will chose, it will be always easier to sell your good players, instead of your unwanted players, which is perfectly realistic. In my FM14 game, I am getting tons of offers for my good players, especially the younger ones. If I have an unwanted player I am trying to get rid of, it is very difficult to offload him if he is on a high salary - and rightfully so. For me FM14 is by far the best FM in terms of transfer activity.

I have started four games so far:

1) (Small database / only major European and South American leagues): the market is TOTALLY "flat"! Players that make more than 15 goals during a season in Serie A are sold for 2M €, and some other errors! No way to sell "normal" players... (I would say to do not use this option).

2) (Normal database / all leagues from big european and south american countries): the market move a little more, but still remain quite impossible to sell some "decent" player, also on free clause, because there are way too many "normal" players without contract... (Try do not use this option)

3) (Largest database possible / all possible leagues in the world): the game is slow, but playable (at least, with a good pc)... and the market finally seems more realistic! Players are sold and bought all around the world, and also "crap" players for big leagues find a contract somehow... It happen to me to have sold some players from Serie C1 to India... (This is a good option, but the speed is clearly lower) (ALSO: of you want to play only with a team, you can "cheat" a bit using the pre-game editor, and set MANY affiliations (I use 350...) with your team... I receive, in this way, many offer from south america, asia and north america, but also lower leagues of europe)

4) In testing... (the final game... using mod to enable the leagues for all around the world...): I will test (especially the speed of the game) and say something

On a side note: Whatever setup you will chose, it will be always easier to sell your good players, instead of your unwanted players, which is perfectly realistic. In my FM14 game, I am getting tons of offers for my good players, especially the younger ones. If I have an unwanted player I am trying to get rid of, it is very difficult to offload him if he is on a high salary - and rightfully so. For me FM14 is by far the best FM in terms of transfer activity.

Well in pervious iterations* I usually had problem selling any players, good or bad, if they were not listed. This was especially annoying as I tend to play with hometown club that struggles to keep good players for longer than two seasons. Another connected issue was strange financial modeling (at least in Croatia) where even small teams are in position to refuse extremely generous offers for their players. This just doesn't happen in real life as small Croatian teams struggle financially and sell their best players for peanuts.

*I played just one season in FM14.

Well in pervious iterations* I usually had problem selling any players, good or bad, if they were not listed. This was especially annoying as I tend to play with hometown club that struggles to keep good players for longer than two seasons. Another connected issue was strange financial modeling (at least in Croatia) where even small teams are in position to refuse extremely generous offers for their players. This just doesn't happen in real life as small Croatian teams struggle financially and sell their best players for peanuts.

*I played just one season in FM14.

If the finances for those teams are not modeled correctly, that's another issue.

In my test save in FM14, I used a Turkish 2nd div team, which was struggling financially. Monaco approached me almost at the very beginning of the game, for my best young player, an 18 year old FUTURE star midfielder. His value was around 150K. They offered 2.5 million, and I negotiated and sold him for 3 million dollars. This never happened to me in any FM before. The following weeks, several larger Turkish clubs kept approaching me for my best 4-5 players, continuously. But the offers were nowhere as good as the money I got from Monaco, but they were decent enough for me to consider if I needed money (but I didn't any more, after getting 3 million from Monaco).

There were a few players in my team that I immediately noticed - overpaid backup players. Now those are the ones you can't get rid of by selling, because nobody will buy them. That makes sense though. Otherwise FM would be too much of a game and not a simulation. You can still get rid of them by mutually terminating their contracts though, like in real life.

This is an area of the game that I have been criticizing the most in the last few years, and it is not nearly perfect in FM14 either, but at least there is some noticeable improvement finally. It is a step in the right direction in my opinion.

I just cannot believe there are no official guidelines for something as important as this. So should I choose small or medium database for save with 49 active leagues (41 nation)?

Honestly, I think that comment is overstated and your worries are too great. Just pick a large database and pick whatever leagues and enjoy what is a game that will no longer be patched. To blame players for transfer inactivity is just absurd because 99% of those unemployed players are utter rubbish and the game not only will eventually retire them within a season, but most won't go to the clubs we manager, say in the Championship or whatever.

If I have a 2 million pound player to sell, and he is on low wages - it is unthinkable no one would want him for free when offered out, all because the game decided to buy an obscure player for free because you chose a large database? The game should also try and attempt more player trades or accept trades, and any player you offer for free, in my mind would always get a bite or two in real life. Another problem is that other teams are buying players with similar stats my player has, and paying AI fees for them. So as stated, it seems AI to AI transfers happen very often, yet USER to AI is a whole different affair.

When people begin to blame the player for bugs in the game, I feel it is time to take a step back and rethink how things work in the game. Transfer activity is broken (in my mind) in FM2014, no matter the database size.

Thanks everybody! I selected medium db size.

I always play on large, with about 10 nations loaded (down to the bottom on each).

Usually; England, Scotland, Germany, France, Holland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ukraine and Russia.

I see you've picked out a couple of my posts Govnar and my thoughts are already in them.

Its simply a case of supply and demand, if you flood the market with free agents you'll get lots of choice but so will the AI clubs so why should they buy your players? I'm not saying by simply picking a small database you'll immediately fix the problem but users can certainly make the issue a lot worse by flooding the market.

What I would add to those posts is that by starting a game as you have with 49 leagues/41 nations there probably won't be a massive difference between the different sizes.

I recently started a game with every league loaded (Not sure how many that is) and a small gave 201,000 approx players while a large was 208,000 approx players.

The biggest issues occur when players load less than say 10 leagues on a large database and then add a load of extra players.

I see you've picked out a couple of my posts Govnar and my thoughts are already in them.

Its simply a case of supply and demand, if you flood the market with free agents you'll get lots of choice but so will the AI clubs so why should they buy your players? I'm not saying by simply picking a small database you'll immediately fix the problem but users can certainly make the issue a lot worse by flooding the market.

What I would add to those posts is that by starting a game as you have with 49 leagues/41 nations there probably won't be a massive difference between the different sizes.

I recently started a game with every league loaded (Not sure how many that is) and a small gave 201,000 approx players while a large was 208,000 approx players.

The biggest issues occur when players load less than say 10 leagues on a large database and then add a load of extra players.

Your posts have been very helpful. You are right about db differences being less noticeable when selecting large number off active leagues. If I remember correctly it was something like 116,000 (small db) vs 123,000 (large db).

My rig is hardly cutting edge; AMD Phenom II X6, 8GB DDR3 RAM & a GeForce 315 512MB GFX Card.

I value detail over speed, but it's still reasonably quick - I run - 28 in Europe, plus four in South America and both USA/Mexico. I only run the top divisions in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, USA, Uruguay, Turkey, Greece, Switzerland, Russia, Portugal, Slovakia, Romania, Mexico and Greece, and go down to at least the second level on the remainder, all divisions in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland & Ireland, but on top of that, I have retained top players in various regions - Central America, Caribbean, Oceania, Africa, Middle East, South East Asia and Central Asia. Finally, I also retain everyone in the English Regional Leagues (Isthmian, Southern, Northern), everyone in the Sussex County League, and the Highland/Lowland leagues in Scotland.

On a Medium database, this produces about 128,000 players, and it's fine - I've been running the same setup for years, and FM14 is quicker at it than FM13.

I think SI should consider to make non-active teams a little more active, regardless if that may cause some minor extra lag in processing. Especially in terms of contract negotiation. I've noted in FM14 that most players in non-active leagues will leave their teams when their contract expires. It's like the teams don't even try to keep their players. So even if you load all players from a certain country that do not have a playable league in FM all the teams from that country will be almost empty after a few seasons.

Maybe a compromise can be reached? It do take more processing power so why not assign a specific date during which all contract extensions and maybe a large bulk of transfer activity happens for every non-active country? It may not be realistic but at least it will keep the game world more interesting and active. They can even make it an option before starting the game. Let us click a box if we do not want the more active game world to save processing power and increase speed a little.

I remember when I played Total Club Manager 2002 and 2003 a decade ago. Every country in the world had a viewable league table with minor statistics.

I see you've picked out a couple of my posts Govnar and my thoughts are already in them.

Its simply a case of supply and demand, if you flood the market with free agents you'll get lots of choice but so will the AI clubs so why should they buy your players? I'm not saying by simply picking a small database you'll immediately fix the problem but users can certainly make the issue a lot worse by flooding the market.

What I would add to those posts is that by starting a game as you have with 49 leagues/41 nations there probably won't be a massive difference between the different sizes.

I recently started a game with every league loaded (Not sure how many that is) and a small gave 201,000 approx players while a large was 208,000 approx players.

The biggest issues occur when players load less than say 10 leagues on a large database and then add a load of extra players.

I appreciate that it may not be your intention but your posts on this matter tend to come across as if it's the players fault that the transfer system doesn't work if the database size isn't matched to the number of active leagues.

This isn't freeware. The transfer system should function as normal whatever combination of database size and number of leagues you select.

I appreciate that it may not be your intention but your posts on this matter tend to come across as if it's the players fault that the transfer system doesn't work if the database size isn't matched to the number of active leagues.

This isn't freeware. The transfer system should function as normal whatever combination of database size and number of leagues you select.

I disagree.

If the user is given options then there are positive and negatives of picking each option. The user has to take a certain amount of responsibility when it comes to selecting those options. I'm not saying its 100% the users fault that the transfer market is as it is but the choices taken at the start of the save influence it and can improve it somewhat or make it significantly worse.

Maybe SI could add some advice when starting a save, you select your leagues and then you have a section that advises you load between X & Y number of players. If you select over that number you could even get a pop up window asking if you are sure you want to continue.

This is generally a fairly minor issue if you select a good spread of active leagues, as I've stated its most noticeable when users load lots of players but only a small number of leagues.

Its also important that this doesn't overshadow the other issues with the transfer market. The two bigger issues I feel are:

A) I think a lot of users who have issues either have unrealistic expectations or don't approach transfers in a manner that FM is coded to understand. Add that to the restricted activity in the first season of a save due to budgets/squads and I think you get a certain amount of frustration from those users. Can SI do anything in this area to reduce that frustration?

B) On SI's part they need to continue improving squad building and how teams identify & approach targets, it needs to be much more difficult for users to keep good players when bigger teams come knocking.

I disagree.

If the user is given options then there are positive and negatives of picking each option. The user has to take a certain amount of responsibility when it comes to selecting those options. I'm not saying its 100% the users fault that the transfer market is as it is but the choices taken at the start of the save influence it and can improve it somewhat or make it significantly worse.

Maybe SI could add some advice when starting a save, you select your leagues and then you have a section that advises you load between X & Y number of players. If you select over that number you could even get a pop up window asking if you are sure you want to continue.

This is generally a fairly minor issue if you select a good spread of active leagues, as I've stated its most noticeable when users load lots of players but only a small number of leagues.

Its also important that this doesn't overshadow the other issues with the transfer market. The two bigger issues I feel are:

A) I think a lot of users who have issues either have unrealistic expectations or don't approach transfers in a manner that FM is coded to understand. Add that to the restricted activity in the first season of a save due to budgets/squads and I think you get a certain amount of frustration from those users. Can SI do anything in this area to reduce that frustration?

B) On SI's part they need to continue improving squad building and how teams identify & approach targets, it needs to be much more difficult for users to keep good players when bigger teams come knocking.

SI should definitely add tip when starting the save to notify users that db size will impact transfer activity! Otherwise I fully agree that improved AI squad building in necessary. AI doesn't notice great performing players (mostly specialists) that have low CA. Another thing that I noted is AI looks at wages and transfer fee separately instead of cumulatively when it's deciding whether to bid on player. I believe that this is the reason that very good but overpaid players can't be transferred even for free.

I think SI should consider to make non-active teams a little more active, regardless if that may cause some minor extra lag in processing. Especially in terms of contract negotiation. I've noted in FM14 that most players in non-active leagues will leave their teams when their contract expires. It's like the teams don't even try to keep their players. So even if you load all players from a certain country that do not have a playable league in FM all the teams from that country will be almost empty after a few seasons.

Maybe a compromise can be reached? It do take more processing power so why not assign a specific date during which all contract extensions and maybe a large bulk of transfer activity happens for every non-active country? It may not be realistic but at least it will keep the game world more interesting and active. They can even make it an option before starting the game. Let us click a box if we do not want the more active game world to save processing power and increase speed a little.

I remember when I played Total Club Manager 2002 and 2003 a decade ago. Every country in the world had a viewable league table with minor statistics.

I TOTALLY agree... as I said in another thread, EHM 2007 (hockey sim from SI) had an option to "fast simulate" league, so you could play ALL the league in the world really fast, and also the non-active league where very busy of work, to sign good players...

I don't know, the new db system is really impressive, but I miss some of the "simple" style of the past

For example, this year I want to add Serie D, Eccellenza and Promozione to Italy, but the DB is so complex that still there isn't a mod that is working...