[FM2016] Denmark fantasy pyramid - regional and county leagues

Danish Regional Leagues

>>DOWNLOAD from Steam Workshop here<<

(Sorry about the poor visuals, but it is surprisingly hard to find a decent image of the Danish regions/counties online)

For previous versions of FM I have created my own Danish fantasy pyramid, completely revamped from top to bottom, because

a) I don't particularly like the real-life structure, and

b) I want to enable lower league management in Denmark.

I have enjoyed playing within this structure, so this year I have decided to share it with you all, and I am doing it while I'm still working on it and testing it, as constructive feedback is (almost) always a good thing. So please feel free to comment if there are things that don't make sense to you or you have other suggestions!

So this is not a mirror of the real Danish football pyramid. Neither does it feature a large number of created clubs beside the ones that are already in the database. I do usually add a few clubs at the lowest level, but only to make up the numbers so some of the county leagues won't be too small, and all of them are based on real clubs.

This is the pyramid structure:

Basically the current Denmark’s Series (tier 4) has been renamed the Third Division. The lower, local levels are inspired by the real-life administrative divisions. So tier 5 is based on the 5 real-life regions of Denmark that were introduced in 2007, while tier 6 (and below) is based on a mix of those regions and their predecessors, the 14 counties of Denmark that existed until 2006, plus the two municipalities that make up the City of Copenhagen. For any Danes out there or others who might be interested, the nine tier 6 divisions cover the following:

1) North Jutland 2: North Jutland + northern part of Viborg county.

2) West Jutland: Southern part of Viborg + Ringkøbing county.

3) East Jutland: Aarhus + northern part of Vejle county.

4) South Jutland: Southern part of Vejle + Ribe + South Jutland county.

5) Funen: Funen county.

6) Zealand 2: West Zealand + Roskilde county.

7) South Zealand: Storstrøm county (South Zealand + Lolland-Falster).

8) Capital 2: Frederiksborg + Greater Copenhagen + Bornholm county.

9) Copenhagen: Copenhagen + Frederiksberg municipalities.

All tier 1-4 divisions have been set to 16 teams, playing a straight format of 30 rounds. The “national level” clubs (tiers 1-4) have been distributed according to their results last season, while all lower division clubs are sorted according to reputation. Some regional leagues are a bit smaller, due to a lack of teams.

The reserves teams play in a separate league, distributed geographically, as do the youth teams, although they have been changed from U19 to U18.

The season runs from around August 1 to November 30 and again from February 1 to May 31, with playoffs and the cup final in early June. There is still a winter break in December-January (although it has been shortened a bit), as experience shows that the climate would cause a lot of especially lower league matches to be postponed anyway. Very few Danish stadiums outside the Superliga have undersoil heating.

Geography, promotion and relegation

1. Superliga: Only the winner (currently) qualifies for the CL, 2-3 for the EL. Bottom two are relegated.

2. First Division: Winners are automatically promoted, 2-5 play off for the other spot. Bottom four are relegated.

3. Second Division: Two group winners are automatically promoted, 2-5 in each group play off for another spot. Bottom three in each group are relegated.

4. Third Division: Three group winners are automatically promoted, 2-5 in each group play off for another spot. Bottom four (West, Central) or two (East) are automatically relegated.

5. Regional Leagues 1: Five group winners are automatically promoted, 2-3 in each group play off for another spot. Bottom two or four in each group are relegated (18 in total).

6. Regional Leagues 2: Nine group winners are automatically promoted, 2-3 in each group play off for another spot. Bottom two are relegated from the groups that have another division below them.

7. Regional Leagues 2: Four group winners are automatically promoted, 2-3 in each group play off for another spot.

Prize and TV money

I have tried to give the Superliga finances that are fairly close to “reality” (only slightly higher than the default database). Divisions 1-3 are set to 10, 1, and 0.1 % of the Superliga, respectively. The regional levels have no prize money, although the regional cups have a little bit for the winner.

Cups

Danish Cup: The main (FA) cup tournament. Has been revamped to include all 352 teams in the pyramid. 9 rounds in total, all teams enter in the first or second round. The prize money in all rounds has been upped somewhat to reward smaller clubs who have a good cup run.

Super Cup: (Re-)introduced as the classic season opener between league champions and cup winners.

League Cup: A new secondary cup tournament for the 112 teams at the national level (tiers 1-4). 7 rounds, Superliga teams enter in the second round, everyone else in the first round. OK prize money, although smaller than the main cup.

Regional Cups: Each of the five regions have their own regional cup for teams from tier 5 downwards, running parallel with the League Cup. A small amount of prize money for the winner (comparable to that in the Third Division).

(reserved for screenshots)

And the file is up. Link to the Steam Workshop at the top.

Please note that this is a beta version, but it has been tested for 10 seasons and seems to run just fine.

Edit: If anyone spots any game-breaking problems, please let me know!

I am aware that the sizes of the regional divisions will fluctuate over time. This is intentional in order to increase the chances of promoted/relegated teams ending up in the right divisions...

What is the status for this database?

Not sure what you mean.

I have holidayed for ten seasons, and everything seems to be working fine. The "success rate" for promotion/relegation (teams endning up in the correct divisions) is over 95%.

The only issue I can see myself so far is with the reserves teams. I am thinking that I probably let the Superliga and First Division reserves start too high up in the pyramid. They can't get promoted higher than two levels below their first teams, but they tend to be strong enough to stay in the division they're in and even taking top positions, meaning that teams further down the table get the promotion/playoff spots. It might also give the big clubs too big an advantage (better match experience for their reserves), so I might do an updated version where all reserves play at the regional level or lower. I don't have the time right now, but it should be fairly straightforward for anyone who wants to edit the file further themselves...

I just thought i wasn't done, but i can't download it via the link, it says that the file doesn't exist..

Since I wrote the answer above, I moved the reserves down as promised and uploaded a version 2. When I ran a test, however, there turned out to be some problems with the playoffs because of too many reserve teams in the same groups. So I fixed that and am testing version 3 now, will upload it as soon as I'm sure it's OK...

Okay, thanks for the work that you have put into this! Looking forward to taking my local team to superligaen

The SteamWorks link from above is not working.

I know, like I explained above, I am working on an improved version.

Turns out the reserve teams are giving me more problems with promotion/relegation than I had expected, so I might end up having to remove them from the main pyramid altogether...

Update

So here's my problem with the reserves: They tend to basically be too strong for the other lower league sides. So after the first couple of seasons, they will clump together in the highest regional tier, which means that there aren't enough first teams in that tier to fill out the promotion and playoff spots. This means that the game isn't able to finish the season and generate the new one.

I've reduced the playoffs in the regional leagues from four to two teams. I also moved some of the reserves further down, but they go back up quickly. I even tried putting a limit on the number of players over 24, but 1) I don't want to put those restrictions on the other clubs in those divisons and 2) it didn't help anyway, the Superliga and First Divison reserves still dominate.

Any suggestions - other than removing the reserves completely from the main pyramid? Preferably using only the basic editor!

Okay, thanks for the work that you have put into this! Looking forward to taking my local team to superligaen

Just out of interest: What is your local team?

Another update

So I decided to remove the reserves from the main pyramid and have separate reserve divisions instead.

This meant I had to reshuffle the regional leagues a bit, but there are still a total of 352 teams in the league: All the Danish clubs originally in the DB plus a handful I created to fill out geographical "blank spots".

I am almost done with this and will get to testing ASAP...

Dllu, i think it preferably better that way.

I'm also defend that shouldn't exist B teams as it takes a spot from a smaller club and we loose that richness and depth in the league system.

Version 4.0 is now available for download. See post #1 for an updated description.

I am currently simming to test the file, but if you start playing, please let me know if you find any errors.

Simmed until July 2025 now, at at the beginning of the 11th season, everything still looks fine. Only a couple of handfuls of teams are in the wrong divisions, and most of those are in Copenhagen instead of Capital or vice versa, so I can easily live with that...

Update

So here's my problem with the reserves: They tend to basically be too strong for the other lower league sides. So after the first couple of seasons, they will clump together in the highest regional tier, which means that there aren't enough first teams in that tier to fill out the promotion and playoff spots. This means that the game isn't able to finish the season and generate the new one.

I've reduced the playoffs in the regional leagues from four to two teams. I also moved some of the reserves further down, but they go back up quickly. I even tried putting a limit on the number of players over 24, but 1) I don't want to put those restrictions on the other clubs in those divisons and 2) it didn't help anyway, the Superliga and First Divison reserves still dominate.

Any suggestions - other than removing the reserves completely from the main pyramid? Preferably using only the basic editor!

Just out of interest: What is your local team?

My local team is NB Bornholm

My local team is NB Bornholm

Well, good luck!

Okay jeg bliver nødt til at skrive på dansk da det er nemmest.

Jeg er rykket op med NB Bornholm til 2. div øst men jeg er nu nået til 24 august 2016 og er stadig ikke officielt rykket op og fået nyt program, faktisk er alle danske ligaer som de var i da den første sæson var spillet færdig. Transfer vinduet er også kun om sommeren fra først i Juli til først i august(d.3 ca). ved ikke om du selv er stødt på nogle af disse problemer?

I'll send you a PM...