[FM2015] USA World Class MLS (8 levels)

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Greetings fellow managers,

It's fair to say that I've neglected this mod in the past couple of months. More fair to say I've dropped off the face of the earth for a little while. I still want an exciting USA experience on the world stage, but I can't continue supporting this mod for a number of reasons. While I've finally managed to get a computer capable of handling a mod this size, the time off has left me a bit dumbfounded at where to begin in patching this mod back to working order. It's simply too big! Furthermore the new job takes up way too much time and energy. I've loved all the support that this mod has gotten and I hope this mod can be used by others to help design their own leagues. Any detail included in this mod is fair use - it's the least I can do to thank this amazing community for following me on this mad journey. One day I may find the time and inspiration to begin another (simpler!) project, but at this time I'm officially stating that USA World Class MLS won't be continued. Be sure to check out the other great MLS files out there.

Thanks everyone,

Graaa

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Version 1.4

Choose ONE file from the following four:

Add the file to your Documents/Sports Interactive/Football Manager 2015/Editor Data

MLS with NACL

Standard w NACL http://www.mediafire.com/download/y7630vl3cibrzmm/USA_World_Class_MLS_1.4_Standard_w_NACL_46A727FE-5B5D-4C42-9F4B-37DF461296C7.fmf

Original Clubs w NACL http://www.mediafire.com/download/65dbwl33cppl9q6/USA_World_Class_MLS_1.4_Original_Clubs_w_NACL_3915ED5D-F14B-41A1-8A89-89FCCEB8906F.fmf

MLS with CWC

Standard w CWC http://www.mediafire.com/download/rz1jd401c6drrw4/USA_World_Class_MLS_1.4_Standard_w_CWC_9E61AC8D-2234-4560-9A99-124C3B9A94A6.fmf

Original Clubs w CWC http://www.mediafire.com/download/o5mri7d1gc69po3/USA_World_Class_MLS_1.4_Original_Clubs_w_CWC_413FF4B2-09D9-4DC2-813B-46EA39BE4AED.fmf

4 files - choose one.

1) "Original Clubs" has 12 teams returned back to their original names (see list)

2) NACL is the standard continental cup system. CWC is a new tournament which replaces ALL continental cups and instead teams around the world compete in a 3 tiered woven knockout format. More details here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cNvLw6-Z5SpFaufs8e6Bbu2Yx_nrvhcDwkU6Hcn4DWQ/edit?pli=1#gid=1234757935

Team Name Changes (select Original Clubs version if you don't want these changes)

1) New England Revolution changed to Boston Revolution

2) Colorado Rapids changed to Denver Rapids

3) New York Red Bulls changed to Empire FC

4) Pittsburgh Riverhounds changed to Three Rivers United

5) Carolina Dynamo changed to Greensboro Dynamo

6) Virgina Cavalry changed to Alexandria Cavalry

7) Minnesota United changed to Minneapolis City

8) Carolina Railhawks changed to Raleigh Railhawks

9) Mississippi Brilla changed to Jackson Tigers

10) Arizona United SC changed to Phoenix United

11) Orange County Blues changed to Anaheim Blues

Logos: - Thanks to wkdsoul!

Go to documents/sports interactive/football manager 2015/graphics ... and then create a folder called USA. Create 2 folders inside this folder called "USA" and "Icons"

Copy these into "USA" - https://www.dropbox.com/sh/yi2ethj4pu6km24/AAA-0L1b9ni-d6WgnrwtkoNxa?dl=0

Copy these into "Icons" - https://www.dropbox.com/sh/pzrzgx4uxsdcggf/AAByTkObRECLiuxlEpdIq_c9a?dl=0

Please read Known Issues before playing (listed halfway down the page)

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Major League Soccer was reborn following the 2014 World Cup after a series of major events reshaped the American sporting landscape forever. Following the NFL's decision to redefine a tackle in American Football as a two-hand-touch due to the overwhelming proof of brain trauma in retired players, scientists proved that playing soccer cures foot cancer and obesity. The next day, Tim Howard caught a baby falling from a 7th floor window and is lauded as an American hero. In the wake of hundreds of newly formed supporter groups rioting in every city square in America for their city to have a soccer team, the MLS commissioner Don Garber was forced into a decision by the NASL commissioner Bill Peterson with the backing of President Obama: expand the league and accept promotion and relegation into the American soccer pyramid, or lose markets to the NASL and USL (and be arrested). The rest is history.

In 2018, the USA qualifies for the World Cup again. After a dismal performance in the Copa America in 2016, Jürgen Klinsmann had resigned as head coach of the US men's national team. The USA Soccer Federation believed that a new direction was needed, and former MLS MVP and US International Preki was appointed as the new head coach. He declared that he will focus on the masses of homegrown talent that suddenly appeared at soccer training camps after it became known that being on your school's American football or baseball team was about as cool as dancing with your grandmother. The USMNT success of Julian Green, the possibility of being signed to a 6-figure salary upon turning 18, and never having to go to college like most of America's athletes have to certainly helped attract many ambitious youth to the sport too.

On the verge of the World Cup, Preki didn't surprise anyone by calling up World Cup 2014 veterans Julian Green, John Brooks, and Michael Bradley, but he had the nation yelling for his head after he left out fan favorites Clint Dempsey, Graham Zusi, and Matt Besler - all in their 30s - in favor of 19 year old Dominic Barrett of the Houston Dynamos, 20 year old Joe Rodriguez of Sporting San Diego, and 21 year old Mike Jolie, who plays for the Seattle Sounders, and who, during the last minute of injury time in extra time at the 2018 World Cup Final, will score the winning goal against Germany and give Team USA the 2-1 win and its first World Cup championship in history.

And at that moment, a world class MLS was born.

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Welcome to USA World Class MLS!

This is a massive project that has been in development for over 4 months.

With 8 levels of USA soccer, over 80 competitions, 588 clubs, and more than 200,000 database edits, this is the most detailed USA file ever. Every level has its own awards, every club has rivals, stadiums, kit colors and more, and extensive testing has been ongoing to ensure long term financial and competitive stability to the game.

This is a fantasy MLS league with 8 levels of soccer from amateur to professional aimed at turning the USA into a world class soccer country.

Features:

1) Club details include rivals, stadiums, kit colors, attendance, ticket prices, head coaches for every club, and much more!

2) Awards created for all 8 levels and leagues

3) History added for almost 50 clubs, present and past, and complete history of US Open Cup and National Amateur Cup (renamed USASA Winter Travel Cup) filled in.

4) Extensive and ongoing balance testing to promote long term stability.

5) Custom competition logos

6) A "original clubs" version of this file is offered with 11 teams returned back to their original names.

7) An optional New Club World championship

What's not included in this file

1) No MLS Draft - it doesn't work

2) No massive cash and reputation injections for MLS teams - they are tested to grow naturally over 5 years before a lot of teams break into any top 100 lists.

The League

Format

Every season runs from August to April, with playoffs in May. Games are on Saturday and Wednesday.

Every level has a championship playoff, a promotion playoff, and a relegation playoff.

The promotion playoff contenders are determined by teams that reach a certain round in the championship playoff. The relegation playoff is always against teams from the league above.

Level 1 – Verizon MLS Premier League – MLS

- 20 teams with E/W conferences.

Level 2 – Xbox MLS National League – MLN

- 20 teams with E/W conferences.

Level 3 – Citigroup MLS League 1 – L1 – East/West

- 44 teams, split into East and West divisions (22 teams each).

Level 4 – FedEx MLS League 2 – L2 – East/West

- 44 teams, split into East and West divisions (22 teams each).

Level 5 – Subway Minor league Soccer AAA – 3A – Northeast/Southeast/Central/West

- 84 teams split into 4 divisions (20-22 teams each)

Level 6 – Subway Minor League Soccer AA – 2A – Northeast/Southeast/Central/West

- 88 teams split into 4 divisions (20-24 teams each)

Level 7 – Subway Minor League Soccer A1 – A1 – Northeast/Midwest/Southeast/Atlantic/ Heartland/Southwest/Pacific/Northwest

- 128 teams split into 8 divisions (12-20 teams each)

Level 8 – United States Adult Soccer Association – USASA – Northeast/Midwest/Southeast/Atlantic/ Heartland/Southwest/Pacific/Northwest

- 160 teams split into 8 divisions (20 teams each)

- Each division split into 2 conferences (10 teams each)

- No Relegation

Cups:

32 Regional Cups

- winner of each cup qualifies for the US Open Cup

- Each with their own name and logo

- Every team in the USA is sorted into a regional cup

US Open Cup

- Winner and runner up qualifies for NACL

MLS Prime Cup

- The next Superbowl

- Identical structure to existing MLS Cup.

- Top 10 teams (5 each conference) qualify through playoffs.

- Winner and runner-up qualify for NACL

4 league cups

1) USASA Winter Travel Cup - USASA

2) GoDaddy A1 League Trophy – Subway A1 League

3) EASports Minor League Trophy- Subway AAA and AA League

4) Mastercard MLS Challenge Cup – MLN, L1, and L2

North American Supporters Shield

- Winner of MLS Prime Cup vs. best Mexican team

- Winner qualifies for NACL

North American Champions League

- New 32 Team Format with room for more teams from existing countries.

- Qualifying format is as follows: Winner and runner up of the Prime Cup (2) and US Open Cup qualify (2), winner of Canadian Championship (1) and Puerto Rican Championship (1) qualify, and the winner of the North American Supporter's Shield qualify (1 USA or 1 Mexican team). If needed, the team with the best league position qualifies.

Volkswagon Friendly Invitational

- Best 4 USA teams vs. best 2 European, best South American, and best Asian team in a July friendly tournament.

Etihad MLS All-Star Cup

- Working All-Star Cup, plays against a top European teams, selects MLS players, plays in July.

Formats & Rules

Club World Championship (CWC) Version:

- See spreadsheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cNvLw6-Z5SpFaufs8e6Bbu2Yx_nrvhcDwkU6Hcn4DWQ/edit?pli=1#gid=1234757935

The new CWC has three tiers - Bronze, Silver, and Gold. Teams qualify for a certain tier based on domestic league position. In the preliminary rounds, teams have the chance to move up or down a tier based on winning and losing the preliminary rounds. Then they are locked into a group stage and finally a knockout cup stage.

At the end of the season is a supercup (named the Platinum Cup) for the 3 winners.

USA Seeding is based on performance in the Prime Cup.

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KNOWN ISSUES and things to watch out for.

1) You must have the top 2 leagues (MLS and Xbox League) both loaded at the very least at all times.

2) For best results, select "Add Players to teams" when you start a new game.

3) If you load all 8 leagues, prepare for the system to be very slow. 588 teams = having 30 leagues loaded. (see chart below)

4) File compatibility stills needs to be tested - if you want to help build the list please report compatibility here. (list below)

Performance Guide

Levels 1 and 2 (Minimum required) = 2 leagues

Levels 1-3 = 4 leagues

Levels 1-4 = 6 leagues

Levels 1-5 = 10 leagues

Levels 1-6 = 14 leagues

Levels 1-7 = 22 leagues

Levels 1-8 = 30 leagues

Compatibility

In general, any file that edits the MLS teams or the NACL and/or CWC competitions will not be compatible or will experience issues. Please test report any incompatibilities you find here and help build this list!

Reported Compatible

[FM15] Leagues World Pack: South America, Europe, North America, Asia, Africa, Oceania by Claassens

All Claasens EXCEPT Faroe Islands, Sudan, and Georgia, Andorra, Angola.

Reported Incompatible

FM2015 Real Names and German National Team Fix File v1.1 for FM15.2.1 (by Susies) - reports indicate if you do not add the media files, this should work.

Czech Lower Leagues (from FM Scout)

Italy Lower Leagues (from FM Scout)

Claassens Faroe Islands, Georgia, Sudan

Want to help build this list? Report compatible and incompatible files here!

Guide to replacing teams

First and only rule to replacing an old team with a new team – they must be as geographically similar to the team you’re replacing as possible. That means:

- Exactly the same primary and secondary competition. You can’t add an extra team to the MLS Kansas secondary division, for example, because then you’ll break the regional cups (unless you can fix it )

- Same city or AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE to original city

- If adding a new stadium, its city and GPS coordinates need to be AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE to the old city and GPS.

Guide:

1) Go to the old team’s competitions tab and remove the primary and secondary competition. Add those exact competitions to the new team’s competition tab.

a. Make sure that the regional division tree in new team match those in the old team.

2) Search for players/staff from the old team and change their club contract to the new team.

a. Bug: you may have to go to the head coach and re-select/re-click his job (Head Coach First Team) once he is switched over to make it stick.

3) Copy and paste as much information as you want from old team to new team (if creating a new database entry). Some information needs to be added by hand.

a. You can copy/paste attendance figures, ticket prices, support profiles, season ticket holders, etc.

b. You need to enter by hand the rival clubs and kit colors.

Credits:

Raysox, for clubs, kits, and logos http://boards.sportslogos.net/topic/96415-raysoxs-us-soccer-2030-football-manager-mod/

PCGD, for clubs, kits, and logos http://pcgdstudios.com/america-league-2/

Thank you to everyone who has supported this file from the start, tested the file, offered suggestions and bugs, worked on the club sheet, created kits, logos, the list goes on!

Dim13

Uncle_Sam

Sebacore

Joseph R. Cooper

Wkdsoul

TownForThePrem!

Willster98

Javier

TLCircus

fsquid

paulgerty

Fabulous_Fila

Clemenceko

Donnybrook1

...and everyone who has supported this project after version 0.9 in the forums - Thank you! You're all the reason this file is as great as it is.

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LATEST NEWS:

Club spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cNvLw6-Z5SpFaufs8e6Bbu2Yx_nrvhcDwkU6Hcn4DWQ/edit?pli=1#gid=0

1.4 Changes

1) Club World Championships remade into 3 different Euro-Cup style tournaments with group stages before cup stages. A supercup was added. (CWC Version ONLY)

2) Prime Cup dates staggered (games take place either sat or sun, and either tues/weds.

3) Squad and match selection rules for all leagues are now Max-Foreigner rules, not Min-Homegrown rules. Meant to fix Canadian homegrown issue. Same number of foreigners are allowed, it’s just a different way of doing it. (14 foreigners for MLS instead of 11 Homegrown in a squad of 25, 10 for MLN, etc).

4) Approx 200 referees added to the game and assigned to different leagues. – Thanks Heath Matthias!

5) Loan rules for each league revamped to favor domestic U23 loans. The limits are changed from Max Loans per Season to Max Loans at One Time. Overall, more loaning is allowed.

6) Youth development improved – players on youth contracts can now play in senior matches. The regen age was set to 16 to improve regen CA at the time of their creation and allow you to get rid of youth you don’t want sooner (because youth contract expires at age 18). Youth intake day was set to July 1st to allow unwanted youth contracts to expire before the youth intake. This has the effect of creating more youth regens for AI teams (due to more room), and hopefully allowing better youth and more youth to be developed in AI teams.

7) Removed Work Permits due to potential for errors and how USA has no work permits in reality– thanks Podunkboy!

8) Created U23 leagues and U23 teams to complement the U18 team.

9) Various typo and name fixes. Changed CWC names. Fixed lower case “L” in A1 Leagues. Added USASA 3-letter names. – Thanks Joseph R. Cooper, Sevestra, and Heath Matthias!

10) Added several dozen of the largest real USA stadiums into database. Teams may move/buy these stadiums when they become big enough or take up temporary residence when their stadium is getting expanded. –thanks Rcolesworthy!

11) Increased prize money of Premier League for league position and increased Lower League prize money for finals (EA Sports Cup, GoDaddy, Cup, Winter Travel Cup, and Mastercard Cup) to compensate for the hardcoded 33% transfer tax imposed by MLS that I was unable to remove.

Some unresolved issues:

1) Weird news/journalist questions being received when playing in CWC (due to moving up and down a tier I believe, but I haven’t figured out how to fix).

2) A couple AI teams ending their vacations several weeks too early in MLS premier (seems to occur when a Friendly is scheduled too early - it brings players back from Vacation).

3) 33% transfer tax from MLS - I balanced this out by increasing prize money for premier league and lower league cups.

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1.3 Changes

• KEY INFORMATION – I’m re-instituting the requirement that you must have the top 2 levels loaded for this to work properly. It turns out that I didn’t fix the issue that existed before and it is impossible to fix with the way the rules are set up. You must have MLS and Xbox League both loaded at the very least at all times.

1) Fixed issue where reserve and U18 teams were picking grayed out players instead of your contracted players. – Thanks Taleron!

2) For CWC users – rebuilt the CWC with the new tiered knockout structure.

3) Playoff rounds now will have higher seeded team (the better one) playing at home in the 2nd leg. – Thanks Dim13!

4) Fixed the amateur schedule (finally) – there should never be a regular season or amateur cup game played on Wednesday (except for the regional cup matches).

5) Changed amateur league sub rules – now 12/12

6) Changed the transfer date for the amateur league – now it is June 23rd. I’m placing it after the youth intake day (June 14th) so people can play the mini-transfer window better after assessing their team needs after youth intake day.

7) Added 1 free agent-only transfer signing day to amateur league – January 1st.

8) Fixed a couple of stage name typos (stuff like: Team X qualified for the Prime Cup Prime Cup! Blah)

9) Added several familiar USA media sources.

10) Removed the MLS All-Star Match (wasn’t working right past the 1st year.)

1.2 Changes

1) Championship and relegation playoff perfection – I’ve made several breakthroughs in coding the championship games (including the Prime Cup) and the relegation playoffs the way I had always intended. I’ll write more on this below. – thanks to dim13 for help

2) Fixed the fake name regen bug. All instances of “Lower League” “Fake” “Ambitious”, etc have been removed from the file and won’t appear as regen names any longer. – thanks to Ruh Roh

3) Fixed a roster error and added Minnesota Twin Stars back into the “Original Clubs” file (replacing custom club St. Paul FC). –Thanks to rcolesworthy

Version 1.1

1.1 Changes

- Updated to be editor 15.2 compatible (details too long to mention). Should be safe for you to edit again.

- Changed a few stage name rounds (some were still saying MiR and MiE from old versions of this project)

- Changed the final round name in several championships to “Final” or "grand final" to avoid anymore news reports of “Team X won the Xbox Championship Championship”

- Finally figured out how to disable competitions based on what level you choose, IE: Xbox championship will only appear if Xbox league lower is loaded. Speaking of which…

- Fixed issue where you were required to have Xbox MLN Level 2 loaded, now you can play this game without Level 2 MLN loaded and only level 1 =))

- Staggered a couple hundred end-of-season awards so they don’t all appear on the same date.

- New match scheduling system to prevent unnecessary congestion - should never see Sat-Mon-Wed game trio again.

- Changed the way the game handles concussions to be more in line with medical community’s recommendations. Balanced this by reducing how common a concussion is (It used to be as common as “gashed leg, dead leg, now it is as common as “broken finger, back strain, hernia). Recommendations say players should remain out of the game as long as headaches are occurring, which should take 1-4 weeks depending on the injury. I increased the injury time from 5-11 days to 7-21 days.

- Fixed issue where A1 and AA championship finals had 2 legs when should have had 1.

VERSION 1.0

Changes

1) Fixed crash issue - staggered reserve and U18 match dates (Sunday = Reserves, Friday = U18s)

2) Removed about 1000 failed changes… only reduced file size by about 10kb... abandoning that project.

3) Reentered nation average wage and transfer prices after I realized FM15 reverted them back.

4) Small rule change to ensure “flips” don’t happen by mistake when teams are being sorted into East/West groups in MLS and MLN –dim13

5) Fixed Canada and Puerto Rico work permit issue – Joseph R. Cooper

6) Changed date of NACL final to take place on the saturday 6 days after Prime Cup –dim13

7) Reorganized menu list order of leagues and cups – put championships lower than cups in menu list because can’t add/remove them properly in game menu.

8) Increased all clubs minimum attendances.

9) Increased MLS team regular attendances

10) Increased MLS team transfer and wage budgets

11) Increased income potential for semi-pro teams

12) Made A1 league a mixture of amateur and semi-pro teams.

13) Made David Beckham owner of Miami,

14) Set career plans for many older and retiring MLS players to want to be head coaches in USA

15) Created over 300 head coaches to make sure every time has one at game start.

16) About 12 derbies added

17) Increased reputation of MLS Prime Cup to raise ceiling of what reputation USA clubs can attain in long term games.

0.9 Released

November 30th, 2014

Three months after I released version 0.1 (and 4 months after I started this project) we've finally arrived to the Beta testing version of this file. During the upcoming week, I'm going to be play testing the game focusing on three areas:

A) Financial stability of the clubs

B) Typos

C) Overall balance/experience

For more details, see the latest post in this thread titled: 0.9 Beta Release

Beta Test Notes

1) There are a couple hundred teams without managers at game start and not much less at season start. Add (as many) managers to teams (as possible).

2) Players already on Canadian teams are being required to get work permits. - FIXED

3) NACL final date will be moved to a later date. - FIXED

4) Increase "Remaining Wage Balance" of MLS teams - DONE

5) Increase revenue of A1 - AA teams. - DONE

6) New teams (Boston, Denver, Empire) don't have favorite personnel carried over from old club - FIXED

7) Balancing to improve MLS club reputations in world over the years. - DONE

8) Create/add head coaches for every single team - DONE

0.9 Changes

1) Removed U23 teams, added reserves as replacement

2) Club Attendances set

3) Club Training/ Youth facilities set

4) Stadium rent and ownership set

5) Ticket Prices set

6) Supporter Profiles set

7) Kit Colors set

8) Rivals set

9) Terminated Frank Lampert’s, David Villas, and Kaka loans so they are available at start of July 2014 season

10) Made the winners of MLS and MLN Championships appear in the "Past Winners" history of those leagues.

11) Added USASA regional championship to get USASA winner for each conference to appear in "Past Winners" history.

12) Added all winners of US Open Cup and US Amateur Cup (named USASA Winter Travel Cup in this file) dating back to their creation.

13) Began organizing USA Soccer history in database

14) Replaced some fictional clubs with actual amateur clubs

0.8

- Fully compatible with FM15

- Fully stable and tested until 2050

- Major additions and changes, and minor ones too (see changelog below for details)

0.8 Changes

1) Made FM15 compatible

2) All-Star Game added

3) Every club has a name and a stadium

4) Final venue stadiums for major cups set

5) Amateur league reworked to improve long term save playability and match scheduling

6) Relaxed limits on foreign loans for Citigroup and Fedex leagues (Leagues 3-4)

7) Names and structure reworked - List of new division name scheme listed below.

8) Changed retirement dates of Landon Donovan and Thierry Henry to June 2015. Please let me know who else is retiring if you know!

Version 0.7

0.7 change log

1) Successfully merged club file with rules file keeping backups of both

2) Fixed L2/L3 relegation playoff draws <- thanks Dim13!

3) Added unique stadiums to each regional cup

4) Ensured that the files works with unactivated lower leagues. (it will only work if Xbox L2 is loaded… you must have at least this level loaded.)

5) Created Hawaii derby

6) Extended Canadian championship

7) Regional cups have been finalized with minor changes in each cup to accommodate the minor shuffling of clubs in the past few weeks.

8) Minor fixes to Subway leagues’ rel/prm playoffs.

Version 0.6

0.6 Complete Changelog

1) Added setting that Under-21 players can always be picked to squad registration of all leagues, hopefully to remove the need for AI managers to pick them because players on Youth Contracts are not allowed to play in games (except in amateur league)

2) Registration window now works for AAA league where a news item pops up and forces you to respond.

3) Fixed the prize money of Citigroup league (thanks Joseph!)

4) Rebalanced the number of teams in East/West divisions for realism. Overall, there are more teams in East now and less teams in the West (realism because population of Eastern USA much greater than in Western). The biggest change would be in the Subway Regional division, where Eastern divisions have 20 teams each and play each other twice/season, while Western division teams have 12 teams and play each other 3 times/season.

5) Newly created regional cups – 32 cups feed into US Open cup

6) First round of each regional cup plays at lower division team home – all later rounds play at higher division team home;.

7) Fixed AAA awards not showing up

8) Hopefully fixed AAA Winter Cup board confidence issue (haven't tested AAA yet for this version)

9) Increased number of foreigners in leagues Xbox through Subway Premier

10) Implemented East/West conferences for Verizon and Xbox MLS leagues wherein promotion and relegation is based off conference performance rather than position on entire league table. Teams still play all other teams in league like normal.

11) Redid Xbox and Citigroup league numbers – now 20 and 22 respectably to make new conference feature work with equal teams in each conference.

12) Removed Geico Cup – too many games played by MLS teams per season, had scheduling issues with other cups too. Added more legs to other cups now that there is room. Added legs to EA Sports, GoDaddy, and Mastercard Cup. Redid Mastercard cup to include Xbox league teams with Citigroup and FedEx.

13) Redid championships of most leagues – more teams included. Different dates. Better fit into end of schedule. Now championships feed into promotion playoffs for MLS leagues 2 – 4.

14) Added new youth awards – Under 18 award (Top Prospect) and 19-23 award (Rising Star)

15) Redid prize money in pro leagues to reflect equitable culture of MLS sports – almost teams from top to bottom get same prize money. Real differences occur when teams win championships and cups, however.

Version 0.5

1) Fixed group draw of Volkswagen Invitational Friendly Cup – now 2 USA teams drawn per group max.

2) Added max foreign player rule for Xbox Elite = 8 foreigners max

3) Set registration windows for AAA league teams to be June 10th – July 23rd and added second window Nov – Feb to coincide with winter break.

4) Set appropriate contract types for all divisions

5) Reduced MLS Premier League TV money to roughly $30,000,000

6) added Fair Play Team prize money for MLS Premier – MLS L2 teams.

7) Cleaned up and made slight changes to stage names and competition names

8) Finished adding awards for ALL divisions including AAA league

9) Finalized AAA league season schedule – all League and AAA Cup games will play on Sunday given that the division doesn’t exceed 12 teams. The regional cup game will play on Wednesday.

10) Re-seeded regional cups to maximize chance that AAA team will be knocked out first round. They will all play against a higher division team.

11) Redid AAA cup, now named AAA Winter Travel Cup – group stage with cup rounds played during winter break. History is now working.

12) Assigned appropriate professional status and reputations to all clubs based on league for better play testing of lower leagues

Version 0.4

1) Fixed bug that caused incorrect rules to be displayed in the league rules window (including original MLS draft dates when there is no draft). Also it appeared to be causing scheduling issue with leagues starting on the wrong date so now everything starts as intended in July.

2) Added Championship Cups to ML1 – MiR leagues where winner of East/West etc play each other. None for MLS Elite or AAA amateur league yet because I don’t know who the MLS Elite team would play (I prefer to keep it that the top team is champion and is promoted and the rest to promotion playoffs) and the AAA league top teams all have promotion playoff games which would conflict with a championship.

3) Reverted relegation/promotion spaces back to 0.2 numbers to allow for championships not to conflict with promotion playoff games (all leagues except amateur should have top team promoted automatically and play in a national championship. Amateur has a top spot promotion playoff against upper league team.

4) Added regional divisions to all AAA amateur teams and redid cup seedings for regional cups to include extra teams

5) Fixed prize money for regional cups and set quarter final TV to Pay Per View for all regional cups

6) Set seedings for AAA league cup – teams play in a league format against their own local division and top 2 teams qualify for knockout rounds.

7) Fixed number of subs in NACL - now is 3 from 7 (Thanks Sebacore!)

Version 0.3

Changes:

1) Added 8th level - AAA Amateur League

2) Completely redone league format - now teams are divided into proper regional child competitions rather than "groups". This will increase the editing work needed for clubs but I think it will ultimately ensure complete adherence to the strict regional boundaries I'm hoping to maintain.

3) Fixed Prime Cup seedings so lowest ranked team plays highest ranked in the upper cup rounds. < Thanks dim13!!)

4) Also did the same for other relegation playoffs, though in certain leagues I decided to have a geographical draw instead of a seeded draw to ensure regional balance

Version 1.4

Choose ONE file from the following four:

MLS with NACL

Standard w NACL http://www.mediafire.com/download/y7630vl3cibrzmm/USA_World_Class_MLS_1.4_Standard_w_NACL_46A727FE-5B5D-4C42-9F4B-37DF461296C7.fmf

Original Clubs w NACL http://www.mediafire.com/download/65dbwl33cppl9q6/USA_World_Class_MLS_1.4_Original_Clubs_w_NACL_3915ED5D-F14B-41A1-8A89-89FCCEB8906F.fmf

MLS with CWC

Standard w CWC http://www.mediafire.com/download/rz1jd401c6drrw4/USA_World_Class_MLS_1.4_Standard_w_CWC_9E61AC8D-2234-4560-9A99-124C3B9A94A6.fmf

Original Clubs w CWC http://www.mediafire.com/download/o5mri7d1gc69po3/USA_World_Class_MLS_1.4_Original_Clubs_w_CWC_413FF4B2-09D9-4DC2-813B-46EA39BE4AED.fmf

Logos: - Thanks to wkdsoul!

Go to documents/sports interactive/football manager 2015/graphics ... and then create a folder called USA. Create 2 folders inside this folder called "USA" and "Icons"

Copy these into "USA" - https://www.dropbox.com/sh/yi2ethj4pu6km24/AAA-0L1b9ni-d6WgnrwtkoNxa?dl=0

Copy these into "Icons" - https://www.dropbox.com/sh/pzrzgx4uxsdcggf/AAByTkObRECLiuxlEpdIq_c9a?dl=0

Awesome file, thank you !!

Looks like there is a problem with the seeding for the MLS Prime Cup.

Examples:

Year 1, In the Quarterfinals: 6th place @ 4th place and 5th @ 3rd. (should be 6th @ 3rd and 4th @ 5th)

Year 2, In the Semifinal: 7th place @ 2nd place and 4th @ 1st place (should be 7th place @ 1st place and 4th place @ 2nd place)

...

Looks like there is a problem with the seeding for the MLS Prime Cup.

...

Here's is one way to fix the seeding:

Stage 0 - General

- UNCHECK Reverse Teams

Teams:

- CLEAR, and add the following in this order:

Type: Get League Stage Teams

Comp: Verizon Major League Soccer Premier Division

Max # of Teams: 2

Stage: 0

Top Position: 5

Bottom Position: 6

Seeding Method: Teams get incremental seeding values..

Seeding to give teams: 5

Type: Get League Stage Teams

Comp: Verizon Major League Soccer Premier Division

Max # of Teams: 3

Stage: 0

Top Position: 4

Bottom Position: 4

Seeding Method: Teams get incremental seeding values..

Seeding to give teams: 2

Type: Get League Stage Teams

Comp: Verizon Major League Soccer Premier Division

Max # of Teams: 2

Stage: 0

Top Position: 0

Bottom Position: 1

Seeding Method: Teams get incremental seeding values..

Seeding to give teams: 0

Round 0:

- OK as is

Round 1:

Draw Rules (the following should be selected):

- Seeded Draw

- Higher seeded team plays at home

- Wait until all teams are known before draw

Draw Date:

- Drawn After Previous Round: Wild Card

- Number Of Days After Previous Round: 1

- Valid Cup Draw Rules - CLEAR

Round 2

Draw Rules (the following should be selected):

- Seeded Draw

- Higher seeded team plays at home

- Wait until all teams are known before draw

Draw Date:

- Drawn After Previous Round: Quarter Final

- Number Of Days After Previous Round: 1

- Valid Cup Draw Rules - CLEAR

If you then add a Round 3 (to Stage 0 of the MLS Prima Cup) with Round 3 being the MLS Prima Cup Final, the seedings would be correct and you could have the highest seed playing at home for the Final, instead of having the Final at a Neutral stadium. I'm assuming you have the Final at a Neutral stadium now because the seedings aren't working.

I've testing 2 seasons with the above changes and the seeding looks correct so far.

Here's is one way to fix the seeding:

Brilliant bit of editing there - just tested it in editor for 4 seasons and it works each time. I'll keep it for version 0.3.

If you then add a Round 3 (to Stage 0 of the MLS Prima Cup) with Round 3 being the MLS Prima Cup Final, the seedings would be correct and you could have the highest seed playing at home for the Final, instead of having the Final at a Neutral stadium. I'm assuming you have the Final at a Neutral stadium now because the seedings aren't working.

I separated the stages mostly for the Inbox news - I want the inbox to differentiate when a team plays in the playoffs (stage 0 name) and the championship (stage 1) name. If I had it all in stage 0, sometimes when a team wins the prime cup championship, it will say "Team X wins the prime cup 'playoffs' championship!" If I removed the stage 0 name and just kept the round names, then inbox news would say something like: "Team X qualifies for Prime Cup" (half the time saying wild card, half the time not), which gets on my nerves a bit because I'd like to have it say "Team X qualifies for Prime cup" or "Prime Cup Championship" only when they actually qualify for the final... it's still being worked out I suppose but that's the idea behind separating the stages - team inbox news haha.

I'd like to have the final play at Crossroads Field... or whichever stadium gets the highest attendance. Whether thats the home stadium or not I haven't tested. A note on crossroads field: it's in Kansas City which is the city I use for the main E/W conference split and it's also a few miles from the main N/S split.. making it pretty much the defined center of the USA league. Just thought it was a cool idea.

Released version 0.3!!

I will be taking a break from editing for a bit to move and start a new job. I think progress is going well and the major event to wait for is the release of FM15 so complete editing of clubs can begin. Anyone interested in participating in club editing please message me!

For now, I'd say that the rules are about 80% done and they just need play testing to spot any bugs and immersion-breaking faults. The AAA league needs to be finished as well. This release is stable and was run in the editor's tester until 2025 and one season was run in-game from start to season update day by myself.

Major changes:

- Added 8th level - AAA Amateur League

- Completely redone league format - no more regional groupings - now teams are divided into regional child competitions. This will increase the editing work needed for clubs but I think it will ultimately ensure complete adherence to the strict regional boundaries I'm hoping to maintain.

- Fixed Prime Cup seedings so lowest ranked team plays highest ranked in the upper cup rounds. < Thanks dim13!!)

- Also did the same for other relegation playoffs, though in certain leagues I decided to have a geographical draw instead of a seeded draw to ensure regional balance

I noticed some teams are in the wrong Regional division. DC United in Northwest?

Also the NACL you only get to choose three subs? Shouldn't you get 7.

I noticed some teams are in the wrong Regional division. DC United in Northwest?

Also the NACL you only get to choose three subs? Shouldn't you get 7.

That's right about the teams, they aren't in the correct regional division because I'm waiting until FM 15 to do any serious editing on them. They are randomly assigned in this version. I want the focus of testing right now to be on finding any inconsistencies (like the NACL subs, good find!) and feedback on how the fictional season feels like at the moment.

Will correct the NACL subs for v. 0.4

Just to let you know, unless the editing options change dramatically (unlikely) you won't be able to do All Star games, and the MLS Draft is always threatened by large-scale edits to the American leagnes - in your testing be especially on the look-out for Drafts ceasing to work after a number of seasons.

Just to let you know, unless the editing options change dramatically (unlikely) you won't be able to do All Star games, and the MLS Draft is always threatened by large-scale edits to the American leagnes - in your testing be especially on the look-out for Drafts ceasing to work after a number of seasons.

Thanks for the warning - I was originally trying to see if I could keep the draft but decided against it out of suspicion of that every reason you said. I instead raised the maximum age for a youth contract to 23... not much of a substitute but one could imagine the players could attend college until they get signed to a full-time contract

The loss of the all-star game saddens me. That's why I created so many awards - I've always enjoyed your players receiving recognition.

On a side note, I realized that I had overlooked an important detail in the editor... people playing version 0.3 will probably see a few strange things in the league rules (including draft dates!) and maybe even an incorrect schedule starting in December. Be aware that I'm releasing 0.4 very soon and this should be fixed.

***Version 0.4 Released***

1) Fixed bug that caused incorrect rules to be displayed in the league rules window (including original MLS draft dates when there is no draft). Also it appeared to be causing scheduling issue with leagues starting on the wrong date so now everything starts as intended in July.

2) Added Championship Cups to ML1 – MiR leagues where winner of East/West etc play each other. None for MLS Elite or AAA amateur league yet because I don’t know who the MLS Elite team would play (I prefer to keep it that the top team is champion and is promoted and the rest to promotion playoffs) and the AAA league top teams all have promotion playoff games which would conflict with a championship.

3) Reverted relegation/promotion spaces back to 0.2 numbers to allow for championships not to conflict with promotion playoff games (all leagues except amateur should have top team promoted automatically and play in a national championship. Amateur has a top spot promotion playoff against upper league team.

4) Added regional divisions to all AAA amateur teams and redid cup seedings for regional cups to include extra teams

5) Fixed prize money for regional cups and set quarter final TV to Pay Per View for all regional cups

6) Set seedings for AAA league cup – teams play in a league format against their own local division and top 2 teams qualify for knockout rounds.

7) Fixed number of subs in NACL - now is 3 from 7 (Thanks Sebacore!)

So far 0.4 is running great.

Does anyone else have a problem signing players from they academies? No matter who it is I always get a "not interested in talking" reaction. Not sure if it has anything to do with the club ratings.

Thanks Sebacore

I've seen that before - which team are you playing as? There's a strong possibility that it's because the team or the division doesn't have a high enough reputation. A lot of them were retired teams that I dug up just to fill a place in the leagues and so they had a reputation of 1. I am tempted to do some minor edits to the teams next version (making all amateur league teams amateur status, giving all teams a baseline reputation for their division, etc) to make it a bit more playable in the lower leagues.

Currently playing as DC United. So my current rep is 5500, my academy is at 2050. I've noticed this in other edits as well, so its not something unique to your DB.

It's quite possible that after the first season when the reps go up for placing in the MLSP then they will.

Currently playing as DC United. So my current rep is 5500, my academy is at 2050. I've noticed this in other edits as well, so its not something unique to your DB.

Indeed. When the final version rolls around DC United will have a normal U23 and U18 team that you can sign players from. If I'm confused and you're trying to sign from the U18 team I have in there now then it might be because I turned up the youth rating in USA to something like 150 so those players are probably hoping for a European quality team to sign them. Should be fixed when I adjust reputations in stage 2 of development. In that stage all the academy teams in the database will be turned into proper teams (with different names, cities, everything... or I might just retire them and create teams from scratch). That is the plan so far but I'm interested to hear if people like the idea of having Academies or B teams in lower divisions instead of all 500+ unique teams.

At the moment I'm working on trying to get the Amateur league to have NO transfers whatsoever. If anyone knows any workarounds let me know. All my attempts have failed. Here's what I've tried:

1) Under Nation USA / Transfer Rules, I've set Maximum Players Rules - Maximum transfers from same division AND Maximum players in window to 0. There is even a rule that appears in the leagues when I do this that says: "Cannot transfer from same division" or something but this never actually ends up working with the amateur players when I test it.

2) Under Nation USA / Transfer Rules, I made sure that "Amateur Players can join anytime" is marked NO and same for Free Transfers

3) Tried changing all contract types in all my AAA divisions to Non-Contract to see what that does... nothing much for amateur teams it only works for Semi-Pro

4) Under transfer windows, I've set a year-long window from June 10th 2000 - June 10th 2001 that say: No players from same division or lower. Doesn't work.

5) I've tried changing the transfer window dates to like 2050 so that even if someone does accept a new contract, it won't be valid well past their retirement - effectively stopping all transfers. Even though the rules say that the next transfer window is in 2050, the game still overrides it and allows players to transfer on June 10th of the next year. I really thought I had a workaround here!

Another thing I noticed but haven't been able to reproduce yet, still in first season.

I have a U18 player that I have registered, yet is still listed as unregistered for MLS games. Can play in any other comp. Might be me doing something wrong not sure. I'll confirm if it is still happening in my second season after youth intake.

[EDIT]

So it appears players on youth contracts cannot play in MLSP. I think that is appropriate so not really an issue.

Oh yeah, I set that in the rules. Youth contract players cannot play except in Amateur leagues. Wish that the game would mention something like that in the league rules but oh well. Glad you like it =)

It's too bad that it lets you waste a registration spot on the player I think though. Maybe there's something I can do about that.

Like I said, makes perfect sense.

Version 0.5 released - most playable version to date with club professional statuses and reputations edited to make lower leagues more playable for testing.

Now my work is focused on finding inconsistencies and immersion breaking faults in the game through play-testing. I invite everyone to post any issues they have or things they don't like and I'll address it. No issue is too small! No detail too silly!

Will be cooling off the editing for a little bit at the same time to move and start a new job but will be checking the forum and play testing on my own. Hope you enjoy! This version will be around longer than the others...

I hope everyone is enjoying version 0.5. As I leave for a bit to take a break from editing this file, I want to list the coding challenges that I'm having with this file at the moment. I'll describe my vision behind what I want to put in this file, the issues I've had putting it in, and the things I've tried to do to fix it. If anyone is up to the challenge of completing these things, you'll get full credit for it if you post a description of the solution here in the forum. As of now, I've pretty much given up on trying to fix these issues.

1) Winter Break in the AAA league where teams go on vacation after being knocked out of the AAA Winter Travel Cup.

- right now when teams get knocked out of the cup, they don't go on vacation and instead have a nice long wait until their next game in February.

* I've put in a mid season break date range in the USA section for the AAA league

* I've even tried a couple unorthodox things like removing the season period of the AAA league while keeping the mid season date range. I've also tried splitting the AAA season period into 2 parts - a date range that ends at the start of the winter break and a date range the starts at the end of the winter break. This has the nasty side effect of making the game start in January when you create a new game instead of in June.

* I suspected that it was due to the cup stages, so I added an extra round to the stage 1 cup round where all non-qualified teams play one last game against each other before being eliminated (setting the winner/loser next round to -1 in the round settings). This didn't work.

2) Unregistered players in AAA league are waived. This is essential, I feel, because of the max annual salary of $0 in the AAA league and the necessity that semi-pro teams relegated from the next higher division have of getting rid of their paid players. This would make it easier to get rid of semi-pro players so I wanted a way for them to be waived.

- Right now I just have a standard registration window that automatically starts and stops just like the upper division window.

* I've set a flag for this registration window that says: "Unregistered players are waived' .... doesn't work though

* I've played with a number of settings here including the "squad registration deadline date" option. This interacts in weird ways with the normal automatic registration window if both are active, including not allowing you to register any players except for on that deadline date. Furthermore, this deadline date doesn't give anyone any alerts in-game (except for on the calender) that it's about to close. I like the automatic method because it gives the player an inbox warning and forces them to respond to register. There is one high point that I noticed though - I was able to waive players when I had ONLY the deadline date set (and not the automatic one set alongside). However, it's bugged because this setting allows you to progress past the date without registering at all and thus you can avoid waiving players if you simply don't open your registration screen.

* In short - setting registration deadlines and windows is not user-friendly and/or buggy in the editor. Play with this at your own risk.

3) Setting a No-transfer amateur league. See previous post a few posts up to read about my attempts with this.

* Right now I just have a 1 day transfer window set. If you don't set a transfer window, players will be able to transfer all year long so this is my only solution.

* I'm also trying to see if I can set the monthly/yearly award reputations high enough that your best players (the ones who win monthly awards and are most likely to be approached by other AAA teams) will be unwilling to sign for ANY AAA teams because they think they're too good for them. Since they're already on your team, they won't leave - but they also won't join other AAA teams. Unfortunately they would still be signed by the semi-pro teams, but I find that to be very realistic and agreeable. I haven't played too much with this yet, but may test in the future what reputation level I'd need to set the awards for.

All in all, I'm happy leaving the AAA league the way it is now because it is the lowest league. I feel conflicted about this though, because it has the potential to be the most challenging, rewarding, and fun league! Anyway, I'll be checking back here regularly. Let me know how 0.5 is treating you and what you think!

Best,

Graaa

I'll test. One place where you can find some interesting concepts for custom clubs is in this thread: http://boards.sportslogos.net/topic/96415-raysoxs-us-soccer-2030-football-manager-mod/

One place where you can find some interesting concepts for custom clubs is in this thread: http://boards.sportslogos.net/topic/...l-manager-mod/

That's awesome - any inspiration I can get for custom clubs will save me many hours of contemplation. When I start stage 2 of this project I'll most definitely need to reach out to people for club ideas to replace all these U23 and academy clubs in the database.

I.. I.. I.. well I am never touching the editor again, I'm speechless. This is everything I dreamed of what my mod would look like on paper, but already in a mostly completed state, wow just wow. When I downloaded this, first thing I did was load it up into the editor and my jaw dropped, this is beautiful, I am giving up on my mod because it's not even close to this type of detail I have the time to achieve and I will end playing this.. and only this once 15 comes out, this convinced me to get FM15 asap instead of waiting for a sale, this is fantastic.

I'm assuming a full graphics pack will accompany this at full release because that would be top.

EDIT: First Conference Splits have 100k top prizes rather than I'm assuming 1m since 2nd gets 800k

I.. I.. I.. well I am never touching the editor again, I'm speechless.

Sincerely appreciate the bump . You're most certainly welcome to help edit some of the 590+ clubs when FM15 comes out - it will be a big project and I can use the help. I'll find ways to make it easier for contributors (see - spreadsheet in near future and a plan). Stay posted! As for graphics, I have no clue how to do them! I hope someone who does know steps up to help.

And are you talking about the Citigroup league prize money? 1st place is 1 Million, 2nd place 800K is what I have right?

Thanks for testing - all contributions are very welcome/needed to help iron out any issues and provide inspiration with this version for the next!

I have 100k on both the Citi Group East/West conference 1st place prize money on mine, 800k for second.

I'm not too great with the editor as I just got into the game this year and I'm learning a stupid amount of features this thing has by going through the advanced rules section. I'll help out where I can, there is a Canadian mod out there that could help you with team names for the Canadian section of the leagues.

If you go out and do a spreadsheet, set up a section for teams without a stadium, I'll see what I can do for research and get some stadiums in for completion sake.

I noticed one thing the other night. I was playing the Championship game, winner of MLSP and Mexican league, and the name did not display. This could be due to the skin I was using as I have seen that happen before. IE "DC United won in ."

But just something to look at.

Also I'd be happy to help with any research. So far I love this mod. It has taken over as my favorite US league mod.

EDIT: One thing I would love is some more rivalry cups. Both real ones and some new ones. There was a mod a while back that had tons of rivalry cups that included all teams. The Atlantic Cup had DC and NYRB, but there was an Old Dominion Cup that had all the Virginia based teams. Just something to think about. Or could expand the normal cups to include more teams. I think it makes the "history" of the USA so much cooler.

I have 100k on both the Citi Group East/West conference 1st place prize money on mine, 800k for second.

Ah, I understand. I will make sure this is fixed for version 0.6.

I'll keep an eye out for the Canadian Mod, and I'll most definitely come up with a detailed spreadsheet and a plan on how to attack this club editing in the near future. As a sidenote - keep with the editor if you're really invested - keep testing things in-game but most importantly also test things in the editor if you're using advanced rules - that saves a lot of time. (you can go to test competitions - run it a few years - then look inside each division for a little test summary of each year it ran (matches, winners, etc it's quite useful).

I noticed one thing the other night. I was playing the Championship game, winner of MLSP and Mexican league, and the name did not display. This could be due to the skin I was using as I have seen that happen before. IE "DC United won in ."

But just something to look at.

Also I'd be happy to help with any research. So far I love this mod. It has taken over as my favorite US league mod.

EDIT: One thing I would love is some more rivalry cups. Both real ones and some new ones. There was a mod a while back that had tons of rivalry cups that included all teams. The Atlantic Cup had DC and NYRB, but there was an Old Dominion Cup that had all the Virginia based teams. Just something to think about. Or could expand the normal cups to include more teams. I think it makes the "history" of the USA so much cooler.

That is a strange thing to happen - are you saying you've seen it happen before with this file? Have you seen it happen with other files or the original game too? I'll take a look at the settings associated with that cup.

As far as the regional/historical cups, that's something that could be possible if I replace the regional cups I have in there right now - I could have the new regional/historical cups seed into the US Open cup. I only say 'replace' because adding more cups could overload the already busy schedule of the MLS I think. I will look into this; I think I've seen the mod you're talking about - MikeMagnum's maybe. I downloaded all the USA mods at some point so I'll have a look.

I have just started a save with this edit.

The first suggestion i would have is in the regional cups (competing in North-West region cup), to have the home advantage favoring the lower ranked team. This could give a glimmer of hope for an AAA team against an MLS team. Unless this has been done for financial reasons?

I have just started a save with this edit.

The first suggestion i would have is in the regional cups (competing in North-West region cup), to have the home advantage favoring the lower ranked team. This could give a glimmer of hope for an AAA team against an MLS team. Unless this has been done for financial reasons?

I must say I really like this suggestion - the AAA teams aren't supposed to be able to afford much traveling so it would certainly make sense to have the prelim game be played at home for lower ranked team here. The tickets would also be a nice boost. I'll change the 1st round to this.

I am inclined to keep later rounds the way they are - home advantage to the upper division team - just because the MLS gives me the sense of being rather protective of their higher division teams (have you read the MLS commissioner's thoughts on promotion/relegation in the USA?) so I think it would make sense to give the upper division team the advantage as that's the general trend I see today in the MLS.

Thats a nice compromise as i can understand the theory of protecting the MLS teams safe.

Also, When my ass. man was poached half way through the season, it was impossible to hire another as no one was interested, even when placing an advert. Maybe add a few at a very low rep so this can be fixed.

This site has a lot of great info about lower level teams in the USA http://int.soccerway.com/competitions/?ICID=TN_02

Has current rosters and stadium info.

Also, When my ass. man was poached half way through the season, it was impossible to hire another as no one was interested, even when placing an advert. Maybe add a few at a very low rep so this can be fixed.

That's a good idea - I'll make about 10 low rep assistant coaches to make sure there is a small pool so that amateur teams could have someone to hire if that happens to them. In the short term, try to see if a regular coach or anyone is willing to take the job. Did you select 'add staff to teams' at the start of the game? I wonder why another team needed to hire an assistant.

This site has a lot of great info about lower level teams in the USA http://int.soccerway.com/competitions/?ICID=TN_02

Has current rosters and stadium info.

This is a great resource - filling out the rosters of as many teams as I can is a goal of mine. This site has the rosters for at least the Xbox league. Figuring out what to do for the fictional teams will be a bit of a challenge - I plan to include several of the expansion teams that the MLS is talking about in the Xbox league below the MLS... Orlando FC team, New York FC, the Beckham Miami team, the Atlanta, Las Vegas, San Diego, etc expansion teams. Probably will dip into the USA free agency a bit to fill their rosters.

I need your thoughts on an issue with the MLS.

Since the MLS in my league has 20 teams and the current MLS has 19 with Orlando FC and New York FC being planned for next year, I have to figure out what to do with these 2 expansion teams. Either one team joins the MLS and the other joins the Xbox league beneath it, or I relegate Chivas USA and have both teams join the MLS. What do people think should be done? Both teams are signing high profile players to their teams right now so does one team deserve MLS placement over the other? OR, is it best to work a little magic and make the MLS bigger (say... 21-22 teams)... or just relegate Chivas USA to make place for them. We could say Chivas had financial issues or something.

Since the MLS in my league has 20 teams and the current MLS has 19 with Orlando FC and New York FC being planned for next year, I have to figure out what to do with these 2 expansion teams. Either one team joins the MLS and the other joins the Xbox league beneath it, or I relegate Chivas USA and have both teams join the MLS. What do people think should be done? Both teams are signing high profile players to their teams right now so does one team deserve MLS placement over the other? OR, is it best to work a little magic and make the MLS bigger (say... 21-22 teams)... or just relegate Chivas USA to make place for them. We could say Chivas had financial issues or something.

Relegate Chivas. They're pretty much a joke team at top level but they fare quite well in a 2nd tier division, last game I had going in the US Superleague mod I was playing had Chivas relegated, NY Cosmos and OFC in top division and Chivas goes out and wins the 2nd division gets promoted finishes 18th gets relegated, wins the 2nd gets promoted, in a 5 year cycle before they survived with a 17th place finish, long story short they suck, promote the new sides.

Relegate Chivas.

Seems most likely. Making the MLS 21 or 22 teams would throw things off a bit with the Geico league cup seedings. Although... as I type this I can see an alternative solution: I can chop the Xbox league to 22 teams and make MLS 21 teams. This way seedings for Geico cup work nicely to keep the preliminary round an xbox league-only round until the next one when MLS teams are introduced. I'll have to think if this messes anything up.

EDIT: Chivas have been relegated. Keeping with 20-team format.

Interesting read by the way http://www.soccernewsday.com/usa/a/968/expanding-mls-with-rivalry-bubbles

Here are the 32 new regional cups I'm proposing. I tried to make them regionally coherent, but I don't have extensive knowledge of sports rivalries in places like Ohio and Indiana, so if some of the state groupings are a bit off let me know. I tried to make sure that each cup had at least 8 teams and I split the gigantic states (like California and Texas) into separate cups via North/Central/South lines.

As far as cup names, I'm open to suggestions. This may be one of the hardest parts because I'd like to have catchy names reflecting some sort of identifying trait in the states (either geographic or historical). I've already got a couple possibilities in parenthesis in this list. This work will take me awhile and right now I'm committed to other things so next version 0.6 won't be out for awhile (maybe a month).

1) Alabama-Mississippi-Louisiana Cup (Deep South Cup?) 20 teams

2) Arizona –New Mexico cup 20 teams

3) Arkansas-Missouri Cup (Ozark?) 16 teams

4) Southern California Cup 36 teams

5) Hawaii Derby 2 teams

6) Central California Cup 32 teams

7) Northern California Cup 22 teams

8) Colorado-Wyoming Cup 14 teams

9) New England Cup (CT, MA, VT, RI, NH, MA) 16 teams

10) DC-Maryland-Delaware Cup 10 teams

11) North Florida Cup 18 teams

12) South Florida Cup 20 teams

13) Georgia Cup 18 teams

14) Illinois cup 20 teams

15) Iowa-Dakota-Nebraska Cup-Kansas Cup (Corn Belt?) 20 teams

16) Michigan Cup 12 teams

17) Minnesota-Wisconsin Cup 20 teams

18) Nevada Cup 12 teams

19) New Jersey Cup 10 teams

20) New York Cup 20 teams

21) North Carolina-South Carolina Cup 20 teams

22) Ohio- Cup 16 teams

23) Oklahoma cup 12 teams

24) Oregon Cup 10 teams

25) Pennsylvania-West Virginia Cup (Appalachia?) 16 teams

26) Tennessee Cup 12 teams

27) South Texas Cup 28 teams

28) North Texas Cup 28 teams

29) Utah-Idaho Cup 10 teams

30) Virginia Cup 12 teams

31) Washington Cup 18 teams

32) Kentucky-Indiana Cup = 14 teams

Michigan-Ohio-Illinois and Minnesota-Wisconsin-Dakotas would be good groupings. The Carolina's could be called "The Moonshine Cup", There is a tournament on the east coast called the "Old Dominion Cup" which could encompass 3 or 4 of the current cup locales. Redwood and Hollywood for North and South California's Cup's respectively seem like proper names. Colorado and Washington could have a Marijuana themed name. The Tropicana Orange Cup for Florida sounds about right and The Pecan Cup for Georgia because Peaches get to much of the states credit, Pecans are better.

If I come up with names for the two groupings I suggested, or anything else, I'll pop in with some more.

Also, add in the 401 Derby between The Montreal Impact and Toronto FC

I'm going to keep the groupings the way they are for now - I'd have to break up other states and add another cup to keep with the 32 cup number if I grouped them like that. I need 32 teams to make sure they feed into the US Open Cup with a proper tournament number.

I love the names however - they're going into the game right now. So is the 401 Derby.

I see, another suggestion for the Tropicana is to add the final being played at Tropicana Stadium in Tampa, you know, brand synergy and stuff like that, plus it has a pretty cool tradition of after every Rays home win, the dome gets lit up orange. And now I see that there is 2 Florida cups, so this should be the South one. I'll talk to my friend who lives in bumble**** North Florida for a name idea, all I know is that it should be played in Jacksonville for the final.

New York's Cup can be named after any Financial company in the city with the finals taking place at Citi Field [which if you go with this, Citi Financial would be ideal] or Yankee Stadium since those are the only proper stadiums in NYC that can hold a pitch save for wherever the Cosmos play, which might be a better fit anyways, Nevada can be either Caesar's or The MGM Grand Cup because casinos with the final probably being held at Sam Boyd Stadium.

The New England one should be the Chunky Soup Clam Chowder Classic[o]. Sounded alright in my head and since we're on the topic of food related Cup names.. Skyline [Chili] Cup for Ohio would just go well, although that stuff is disgusting but is a totally regional thing and possibly the Wolverine Open or Motor City Cup for Michigan with finals being played at Michigan Stadium or Ford Field respectively, whichever you prefer.

I'll keep coming up with name ideas, I'll check back in, in a couple days if I have any other ideas.. oh, for Central Cali, San Andreas Cup. Fault line goes up the state and since Redwood and Hollywood are in, this seems like a good fit aswell.

Cool man! Love the names! Just FYI for the north Florida cup, I'm drawing the line at Orlando - Orlando will be the southernmost city in the North Florida Cup. I know it's a bit odd but this way the big cities in Florida are split up evenly with the likes of Miami, fort Lauderdale, Tampa etc squaring off and then Orlando, Jacksonville, Tallahassee playing in the north. Definitely down with a Jacksonville location for the final. I think it's a fantastic idea to have each cup in a special stadium for the final if we can.

I've play tested one season with version 0.5

Here is my list of issues with it at the moment. I encourage others who have play tested 0.5 to contribute to this or verify whether they've seen these or not.

0.5 Test 1

1) No news for registering players in AAA league. Only news for numbers.

2) No monthly awards for AAA lonestar in months of July and August (award started in September)

3) Lots of players asking for more playing time by September (including 16 year olds. New youth candidate players however don't have this issue.)

4) $15 million for bottom Verizon team… seems too high.

5) Something wrong with winter cup ranking system. Board gives confidence rating at very start, says it is disappointed with finishing position before team is knocked out.

6) Winter cup could use a monthly award I think.

7) Yearly Award names not displaying for AAA league

8) Team size is 99 in Subway premier

When it gets to be that time, I'll gladly help get the real team logos in a pack so we at least have them.

Thank you Sebacore. That would be superb.

An update -

I'm still working on this file with the limited time I have in between real-world responsibilities, but here is what I've done so far. 0.6 is not yet ready, but it is getting there.

1) Instituted a conferences system where the MLS league is split into E/W conferences and are relegated and promoted based on their position in the conference instead of the overall league table. Due to limitations with the editor, this has been the trickiest thing to do because splitting the league in any way usually prevents you from scheduling matches against teams in other conferences. But I have it working now with a little bit of editor voodoo so all E/W teams play each other while still being in separate conferences.

2) Created a 32 regional cup structure that feeds into the USA Open cup, replacing the original 8 regional cups so now more regional flavor and variety is in the game.

3) Good progress made on team excel sheet

4) Minor changes (full changelog will come with 0.6 release)

Finally, I have a tentative list of the 32 cup names for anyone who is interested to see. Feedback is welcome, especially if you have knowledge of an area's culture because I mostly followed the formula of picking a sponsoring company headquarted in the state and then a geographic/economic/historical name based on the state from reading wikipedia. Thanks to Joseph for helping. Enjoy!

1) Mississippi-Louisiana Cup

i. CenturyLink Big Muddy Cup = New Orleans, LA

2) Arizona –New Mexico cup

i. Best Western Yucca Cup = Phoenix, AZ

3) Arkansas-Missouri Cup

i. Walmart Ozark Classic = Springfield, MO

4) Hawaii Derby

i. Carnival Cruise Line Paradise Derby

5) Southern California Cup

i. Time Warner Hollywood Cup = Hollywood, CA

6) Central California Cup

i. Apple San Andreas Bowl = San Francisco, CA

7) Northern California Cup

i. Chevron Redwood Forest Cup = Sacramento, CA

8) Colorado-Wyoming Cup

i. Coors Frost Brewed Rockies Cup = Denver, CO

9) New England Cup (CT, MA, VT, RI, NH, MA)

i. Campbell’s Chunky Clam Chowder Classic = Boston, MA

10) DC-Maryland-Delaware-Virginia Cup

i. GEICO Chesapeake Classic = Chesapeake, VA

11) Northern Florida Cup

i. Hooters Daytona Beach Bowl = Jacksonville, FL

12) Central Florida Cup (Orlando, Tampa, St. Petersburgh)

i. Tropicana Clásico = Tropicana Stadium Tampa, FL

13) Southern Florida Cup

i. Bacardi Treasure Bowl = West Palm Beach, Fl

14) Alabama-Georgia Cup

i. Home Depot Goober Bowl = Atlanta, GA

15) Illinois cup

i. State Farm Lincoln State Cup = Chicago, IL

16) Iowa-Dakota-Nebraska Cup-Kansas Cup

i. Sprint Unlimited Prairie Bowl = Topeka, KS

17) Michigan Cup 12 teams = 8 + 4

i. General Motors Motor City Cup = Ford Field

18) Minnesota-Wisconsin Cup

i. Pillsbury Grands! Dairyland Bowl = Green Bay, WI

19) Nevada Cup

i. MGM Grand Las Vegas Bowl = Las Vegas, NV

20) New Jersey Cup

i. Trump Tomato Cup

21) New York Cup

i. JPMorganChase Empire Cup = Westchester, NY

22) North Carolina-South Carolina Cup

i. Denny’s Grand Slam Moonshine Cup = Raleigh, NC

23) Ohio- Cup

i. Skyline Chili Aviators Cup = Cincinnati, OH

24) Oklahoma cup

i. Sonic Boomers Bowl = Oklahoma City, OK

25) Oregon Cup

i. Nike: Just Do It Beaver Bowl = Portland, OR

26) Pennsylvania-West Virginia Cup

i. Hershey’s Chocolate Mountain Cup = Pittsburgh, PA

27) Tennessee Cup

i. Autozone Country Bowl = Nashville, TN

28) North Texas Cup (Dallas, Austin)

i. AT&T Lone Star Classic =Dallas, TX

29) South Texas Cup (Houston, San Antonio)

i. Frito-Lay Alamo Clásico = San Antonio, TX

30) Utah-Idaho Cup

i. Overstock.com Spud Cup = Boise, ID

31) Washington Cup

i. Starbucks Evergreen Cup = Seattle, WA

32) Kentucky-Indiana Cup

i. Wild Turkey Bluegrass Bowl = Louisville, KY

Major Update Here!

http://http://www.mediafire.com/download/3kya4c3awwzcn1d/USA_World_Class_MLS_with_NACL_0.6_w_Club_Edits.dbc

Version 0.6 has arrived, and this may well be the one that most closely resembles the way the final rules will be. I’m already in the process of putting in the finishing touches to this one and transitioning to stage # 2 of the project – editing the clubs. I will again be taking a short break to handle real world things, but I'm very excited about the release of FM15 when stage 2 can officially begin!

The Major Changes are as follows:

1) Complete revamping of regional cup system – now 32 regional cups with localized names, team groupings, and (to be implemented) unique stadiums for the finals will feed into the US Open Cup.

2) East/West Conferences for Verizon and Xbox MLS leagues

- Teams play every team in the LEAGUE twice (38 games/season) and have standings reflected correctly in conferences screen. (see one known graphical issue below)

- Bottom team of each conference plays in the relegation playoff against a qualified promotion contender from the lower league.

- Top 5 teams in each conference play in playoffs > teams ranked 4-5 play each other in wild card > winner plays top conference team in semi final and teams ranked 2-3 play each other in semi final > winners play in Conference championship > winners of East/West conference championships play in Championship... just like real world MLS system.

3) Revamped championships and relegation playoffs of leagues 1 -5

- one month postseason

- teams that make it to certain rounds will qualify for promotion playoff after the championship

- All championships are seeded correctly and drawn by regular season ranking in conference. That means wild card winners in eastern conference play the top team of the eastern conference in semi finals, etc... (BE AWARE - until all teams are properly edited in stage 2, the way they are drawn in this version will not always be correct - you'll see some east/west team mixups. It will work 100% when the clubs are finished but for now it just serves as a functional proof of concept for the rules)

- Promotion gets harder and harder to achieve the higher you go in the pyramid. To achieve promotion to the top league, you must win the conference championship of the Xbox league and then win the 2-legged series against the bottom ranked team of the MLS.

KNOWN ISSUE WITH NEW SYSTEM

The graphics for the East/West conferences in the Verizon and Xbox league are buggy (had to use Editor Magic to make it work!) where during the regular season the color markers that say which teams are in a relegation or playoff position scramble all over the place. I’ll try to find a solution for next version, but at the moment this is a purely visual issue – by the very end of the season the colors correct themselves. Just remember which positions are which for the league and you should be fine – bottom position is relegation playoff and top 5 are playoff spots.

0.6 Complete Changelog

1) Added setting that Under-21 players can always be picked to squad registration of all leagues, hopefully to remove the need for AI managers to pick them because players on Youth Contracts are not allowed to play in games (except in amateur league)

2) Registration window now works for AAA league where a news item pops up and forces you to respond.

3) Fixed the prize money of Citigroup league (thanks Joseph!)

4) Rebalanced the number of teams in East/West divisions for realism. Overall, there are more teams in East now and less teams in the West (realism because population of Eastern USA much greater than in Western). The biggest change would be in the Subway Regional division, where Eastern divisions have 20 teams each and play each other twice/season, while Western division teams have 12 teams and play each other 3 times/season.

5) Newly created regional cups – 32 cups feed into US Open cup

6) First round of each regional cup plays at lower division team home – all later rounds play at higher division team home;.

7) Fixed AAA awards not showing up

8) Hopefully fixed AAA Winter Cup board confidence issue (haven't tested AAA yet for this version)

9) Increased number of foreigners in leagues Xbox through Subway Premier

10) Implemented East/West conferences for Verizon and Xbox MLS leagues wherein promotion and relegation is based off conference performance rather than position on entire league table.

11) Redid Xbox and Citigroup league numbers – now 20 and 22 respectably to make new conference feature work with equal teams in each conference.

12) Removed Geico Cup – too many games played by MLS teams per season, had scheduling issues with other cups too. Added more legs to other cups now that there is room. Added legs to EA Sports, GoDaddy, and Mastercard Cup. Redid Mastercard cup to include Xbox league teams with Citigroup and FedEx.

13) Redid championships of most leagues – more teams included. Different dates. Better fit into end of schedule. Now championships feed into promotion playoffs for MLS leagues 2 – 4.

14) Added new youth awards – Under 18 award (Top Prospect) and 19-23 award (Rising Star)

15) Redid prize money in pro leagues to reflect equitable culture of MLS sports – almost teams from top to bottom get same prize money. Real differences occur when teams win championships and cups, however.

Plans for next version:

1) Fix the graphical issue with east/west conferences

2) Add unique stadiums to all 32 regional leagues.

3) Fix any issues found in play testing

4) Release spreadsheet for clubs to initiate stage 2 of the project!!!

http://http://www.mediafire.com/download/3kya4c3awwzcn1d/USA_World_Class_MLS_with_NACL_0.6_w_Club_Edits.dbc

graaa,

Awesome job !!! Thank you for sharing your work.

Is New York FC's 1250 reputation intentional or was that the default ? In testing, the first year they lost 37 of 38 games, the other game was a draw. I would probably bump it at least 3000 - similar to Orlando City's. Orlando finished the first year with 34 pts.

Unintentional - I forgot to set a fake reputation for the teams this time around after setting the professional statuses - woops. I'll make sure I do that for next version testers. Thanks for the feedback =)

Also noticed with the Level 2/3 relegation/promotion playoffs:

Round 1:

- the 2 last place teams from Level 2 played against each other

- the 2 teams from Level 3 played against each other in Round 1

This would guarentee exactly 1 team promoted/relegated between Levels 2 and 3.

I've only played 1 season, so don't know if this just a coincidence.

Good catch - It should be the L2 team in eastern conference playing L3 team from eastern division and so on - I'll get this fixed next version. Fine work once again dim13

Well, I know what I'm doing tomorrow after the Lions game. Really like the cups, although the Michigan one might as well be sponsored by Ford since it's at Ford Field, I'm pretty sure Ford wouldn't want GM sponsoring something in their stadium with their brand everywhere and vice versa. Other than that, this is looking good.

4) Rebalanced the number of teams in East/West divisions for realism. Overall, there are more teams in East now and less teams in the West (realism because population of Eastern USA much greater than in Western). The biggest change would be in the Subway Regional division, where Eastern divisions have 20 teams each and play each other twice/season, while Western division teams have 12 teams and play each other 3 times/season.

I don't know how much of a problem it would be to code it out, but for the western teams, would it be possible to use the Scottish Premier League's system of after 33 games the league spits into 2 "groups" where the top half plays the top half and the bottom plays the bottom for the last 5 games to balance out a 38 game schedule. I was reading about that last week when I was setting up a Queens Park FC game and got scroll clicking on wiki articles.

I'll be back in here tomorrow night after a season or 2 simmed.

- Promotion gets harder and harder to achieve the higher you go in the pyramid. To achieve promotion to the top league, you must win the conference championship of the Xbox league and then win the 2-legged series against the bottom ranked team of the MLS.

I really like this, fully intend to attempt to bring either Detroit City FC, Belle Isle FC or the Windsor Stars to the VPL when this comes out for 15, probably Detroit City because I feel they have probably the best logo in US sports, that Spirit of Detroit in Burgundy and Gold is pimp.

the Michigan one might as well be sponsored by Ford since it's at Ford Field, I'm pretty sure Ford wouldn't want GM sponsoring something in their stadium with their brand everywhere and vice versa.

An essential point Joseph - shows my grasp out the auto industry lol. I'll change it for next version.

I don't know how much of a problem it would be to code it out, but for the western teams, would it be possible to use the Scottish Premier League's system of after 33 games the league spits into 2 "groups" where the top half plays the top half and the bottom plays the bottom for the last 5 games to balance out a 38 game schedule. I was reading about that last week when I was setting up a Queens Park FC game and got scroll clicking on wiki articles.

It might be possible; I'll have to give it a good hard think. There are a lot of moving parts with not only the fact that the number of teams in the Minor Leagues could change every year if promotion/relegation favors a certain division, but the post season makes the season already about a month shorter. Can I ask what interested you about the Scottish system being put in the Western leagues?