Managing International Minnows

[crouchaldinho]

As many of you may already know, certain International teams are not available to manage from the start of the game, even if you load all players and add different combinations of leagues.

For example, it seems that Liechtenstein do not have enough players in the database to become playable when starting the game, even when loading all players and retaining players at their domestic clubs (and certain Swiss teams as well).

My question is, during the duration of the game, will there ever be enough additional regens created at these kinds of international minnows in order to allow me to eventually manage that country?

Basically, if I load all players from Liechtenstein and then wait for a few years, is it likely that enough regens will be created for them to become playable? Or is there any way of encouraging this to happen?

Thanks for any advice,
C.

[crouchaldinho]

Anyone know the answer?

[MarkTrevor]

I started with San Marino, goit a decent looking 16 year (esp. considering that country) but the game crashed

[Nomis07]

As far as I know teams do not become active after the database has been created. I asked a similar question about the German National team, as the game progresses newgens eventually fill the German team and it isn't greyed out anymore, but it hasn't become playable because of this.

[crouchaldinho]

Not quite what I was looking for MarkTrevor but thanks for replying anyway.

[crouchaldinho]

As far as I know teams do not become active after the database has been created. I asked a similar question about the German National team, as the game progresses newgens eventually fill the German team and it isn't greyed out anymore, but it hasn't become playable because of this.

Thanks for your post Nomis.

I have seen an international team become active during a save once. This was in FM07.

The club I was managing got an affliate with a club from an obscure nation (I can't remember which one) that was unplayable and then, sometime later, I noticed that country was now playable.

I think this happened because having a club as an affliate means the game starts producing more regens for that club and this must have resulted in there being enough players in the database for the country to become playable.

This was a nation with a fairly high reputation though (certainly in comparison to Liechtenstein) and obviously enough players for just a few additional regens to make the difference, if you understand what I mean.

I am just wondering how I could make the same thing occur with the Liechtenstein national team. I am sure I have seen someone on here before who has been playing with them.

A minnow like Liechtenstein has very few players in the database and so I would need quite a few regens to come through.

[Jack Rudd]

The best way of getting Liechtenstein active is to have the Swiss League active; FC Vaduz will eventually start producing Liechtensteinian regens.

[Ter]

I'm managing FC Vaduz at the moment with the hope of being able to manage Liechtenstein at some point in the future so I'll keep an eye out for it (just finished my first season)

[glamdring]

Maybe making yourself of Liechtenstein nationality would help a little too. I managed the Faroe Islands in many past versions. They are manageable from the start so a little different, but obviously their league is not available. They always tended to start with ~350 players in the database and the number of regens tended to keep this figure roughly the same (at least it didn't drop dramatically as players retired or rise dramatically through getting loads of regens suddenly appearing).

I imagine you'd have a tough job getting enough players appearing to make a nation with so few players at the start manageable (I don't know how many players are needed as minimum in order for a nation to be manageable though)

[crouchaldinho]

The best way of getting Liechtenstein active is to have the Swiss League active; FC Vaduz will eventually start producing Liechtensteinian regens.

Thanks for this reply Jack Rudd.

Would it make any difference to retain players from clubs in the Swiss league (using a DDT file) rather than by having the league active, I wonder?

[MarkTrevor]

Sorry for my reply, which sounds stupid after reading the first post.

[crouchaldinho]

I'm managing FC Vaduz at the moment with the hope of being able to manage Liechtenstein at some point in the future so I'll keep an eye out for it (just finished my first season)

Cheers Ter.

I got the idea of managing Liechtenstein (or a similar small country/international minnow) from Charlie Connelly's book Stamping Grounds . I've not finished the book yet but I thought a challenge like this would appeal.

[crouchaldinho]

I imagine you'd have a tough job getting enough players appearing to make a nation with so few players at the start manageable (I don't know how many players are needed as minimum in order for a nation to be manageable though)

Thanks for replying Glamdring.

I think you are right about this. Perhaps the best way is to do as Ter is doing and manage a team from Liechtenstein, i.e. FC Vaduz, thus ensuring that regens are being generated for that team every season. Might take a long while though!

[crouchaldinho]

Apologies for the multiple posting but I also wondered if anyone can tell me the requirement or criterion for international sides becoming playable?

In other words, does anyone know how many players a country must have before it can become active?

[MarkTrevor]

Can I just ask - is this a new addition to 09?

[Ozzy38]

As far as I know teams do not become active after the database has been created. I asked a similar question about the German National team, as the game progresses newgens eventually fill the German team and it isn't greyed out anymore, but it hasn't become playable because of this.

Don't you just do the super secret thing that we unofficially don't know about so the Germans aren't greyed?

[small Mac]

Apologies for the multiple posting but I also wondered if anyone can tell me the requirement or criterion for international sides becoming playable?

In other words, does anyone know how many players a country must have before it can become active?

I did a test on this on '08 to see how many players were needed to be manageable when i started a new game.

I found the smallest number of players from a manageable country was 44 (mexico). However i also found that three other non-manageable teams had more players in the database; Ukraine (49), Sweden (49) and Ghana (46).

I then took into consideration non-playing staff which which showed Scotland to have the least (54) whilst still being playable. However both Ukraine (56) and Sweden (64) had more than the minimum but were unplayable.

So i would say a minimum of around 50 players/staff from a nation would be required but there may be some other factors in play to explain why Ukraine and Sweden were not manageable in my game.

[Frame]

As far as I know teams do not become active after the database has been created.

They did in FM 08 and I don't see why that would have been changed for FM09.

[crouchaldinho]

Can I just ask - is this a new addition to 09?

No Mark Trevor, nothing has changed in terms of the concepts discussed in this thread. Not so far as I know anyway.

[crouchaldinho]

I did a test on this on '08 to see how many players were needed to be manageable when i started a new game.

I found the smallest number of players from a manageable country was 44 (mexico). However i also found that three other non-manageable teams had more players in the database; Ukraine (49), Sweden (49) and Ghana (46).

I then took into consideration non-playing staff which which showed Scotland to have the least (54) whilst still being playable. However both Ukraine (56) and Sweden (64) had more than the minimum but were unplayable.

So i would say a minimum of around 50 players/staff from a nation would be required but there may be some other factors in play to explain why Ukraine and Sweden were not manageable in my game.

Really excellent post that Small Mac.

Very interesting.

Your figures sound about right. I have got Luxembourg playable and they have around 50 players.

Liechtenstein have approx. 30 players in the database and about 10 non-players. Little chance of them coming up with this many players!

I wonder if it also has something to do with national importance and reputation rating of the nations. In the examples you give, for instance, Mexico is 'very important' and has a high reputation. Sweden has a lesser reputation. Ukraine is 'imporant' and has a lesser reputation still.

Going back to Liechtenstein, it sounds like I would need about 20 regens to come through in the game for them to come up as playable. Easiest way of doing this would probably be to load the Swiss leagues and get FC Vaduz creating regens (as Ter suggests). Another way might be to manage in another country and get FC Vaduz as an affliate club in order to get regens. Whether you can get 20 players to come through or not, I don't know. I imagine it is possible but I wonder how long it would take.

[crouchaldinho]

I thought I would post the results of a test I have just carried out.

I started a holiday game with only the Swiss leagues active and with all players loaded from Liechtenstein. This was in order to ensure that FC Vaduz were generating regens.

After two seasons, FC Vaduz had generated 18 regens and the Liechtenstein national team became available to manage with approximately 48 players in the save. I also retained players from all other Liechtenstein clubs in the game but, interestingly, they did not have any promoted youth players during the game, presumably due to the fact that they are inactive. Indeed, a large number of the Liechtenstein national side were FC Vaduz regens.

So, to conclude, it is possible to get Liechtenstein as a playable nation, with a bit of patience and by ensuring that you load the Swiss leagues so that the only Liechtenstein team in the game are active and producing regens.

I would guess that this would also be the case if you had FC Vaduz as a feeder team (without having the Swiss leagues active) for whatever club you were managing at the time. I imagine that they should then start to produce regens in the same way.

[MadWoodster]

Thinking from a programmers point of view, how would one program a game to create regens?
Well you want regens to a) be realistic, but also b) to be related to the player and the leagues/clubs active.

For example if you have the English leagues running then you would expect a lot more English people to be generated than Japanese. This is because the English clubs that are active are going to generate lots of new players and you would expect them to be English. There are three variables in this equation.
Firstly Cardiff, Wrexham, Swansea and Merthyl Tydfll are Welsh and so generate welsh regens (FC Vaduz are a similiar case)
Secondly the game takes into account scouting networks, the theory being that if you have knowledge of an area then you are going to pick up a few youngsters from these areas (coaches and other staff boosting this)
Thirdly and I am hazarding a guess here, there is the percentage game, that states England has x% English, y% Scottish, z% Welsh etc. etc. (Southampton should generate 10% Polish regens in coming years!)

What about the other clubs?
Other clubs (the number I suspect relies on the database size, while the choice of clubs depends on the leagues selected) are going to generate a few regens so they have current squads.

In FM08 (I haven't studied FM09 enough) it seemed any feeder club would generate at least 2 new players a year. So if you have the luxury of choosing where your feeder comes from, then choosing a particular country will make that club more relevant and create you a few more regens from that country. (subject to the aforementioned variables)

So to conclude to generate more regens from a particular country, you need to make the clubs in that country more relevant by choosing the leagues that are going to be relevant and feeders giving a boost.

As has been mentioned the cut of for players is in the region of 40-50. My American Samoa team only has about 40 to choose from I think. Again as a programmer I can imagine they want the team to have enough players to make it sensible for the user to manage them.

[crouchaldinho]

MadWooster - great post and some good points there.

Some further findings from me:

1) Actually managing Liechtenstein (after they became playable) did not result in more regens appearing in the domestic clubs in the future.

2) Starting a game in England with an inactive FC Vaduz as a feeder club for an active English team resulted in FC Vaduz generating 2 regens (as suggested above by MadWooster).

So, to get Liechtenstein in the game using the feeder club method would most likely take around 7 or 8 years (possibly longer)!
With the Swiss leagues loaded and FC Vaduz active, it would take only 2 or 3.

[glamdring]

I didn't realise originally (before Ter's first post) that FC Vaduz were in Liechtenstein, but playable in the Swiss league. That definitely makes them an interestingly viable option that isn't available for most non-playable nations.

I created a brand new Faroese club and added them into the Scottish league in one game, but didn't get beyond the 3rd season. It looked really interesting, but I never fully got into FM08. Faroe Islands are playable anyway from the start, but I had wanted to shape the players and their evolution in a way that you can't when they all play for unmanageable clubs in the Faroe Islands (and are all always lacking match fitness!). It was looking very promising from that aspect. After even just 3 seasons in Scottish Div 3 and Div 2 I had ~15 players in the Faroes U21 squad and more again in the U19 squad.

The AI manager of the Faroes full squad was apparantly an idiot though because he was calling up 17 year old kids from my team to play in goal (and other positions occasionally) for the full national team despite the fact that the kid in question was ~3rd choice goalie for me behind two other Faroese 'keepers and had never played a game at club level. I felt so sorry for the lad as he shipped 6 goals against both Norway and Spain before getting dropped from the squad. If it'd been real life it would have been a soul destroying experience for him!

Obviously if you are managing the national side yourself though you can control all that kind of stuff yourself and not have to rely on an AI manager picking your players sensibly.

[Nomis07]

They did in FM 08 and I don't see why that would have been changed for FM09.

Well it seems that i'm wrong, if glamdring and Ter's posts are anything to go by. I wonder why Germany hasn't become active yet though, there are more than enough Newgens for me to make a squad out of, does it not become active until the squad is full of newgens? ATM it has about 18 active players and 5 greys, perhaps those grey spots have to be filled as well before it becomes active

[A.D]

I know its not a minnow but I've just applied to take over Cameroon aftr their 2010 world cup 2nd round knockout. But I'm hoping I don't get it. England awaits me as they failed to reach the 2nd round. But Rafa hasn't been sacked yet !

[A.D]

I've just declined the Cameroon & Brazilian job. I just can't manage at both club & international level. I guess 2 more years then I will.

[phnompenhandy]

One of the 'problems' with the 'load all players' function is that long term it imbalances the game because a disproportionate amount of regens are produced for those nationalities. So logically, this should work in your favour Crouchie. If you load all players from Liech...n, then each year a few regens should be created which in time would amount to enough to make the national team manageable. However, you might need to sign them all up for your youth squad since if you don't, they might all retire aged 16!

[crouchaldinho]

Phnompenhandy - I'm not sure that's how it works from what I've seen.

I ran a few tests and without the Swiss league active, there were no extra regens created for Liechtenstein when I loaded all players from there. Over a few years of holiday testing, the game kept about the same number of Liechtenstein players in the save.

The only way to get extra regens in order to manage the Liechtenstein team is to have FC Vaduz as an active team, i.e. load the Swiss leagues, or have FC Vaduz as a feeder club for one of your active clubs. The former results in about 8 new regens a season, the latter about 2.

I think the reason people say the 'load all players' function imbalances the game is just down to the disproportionate amount of players of the nationality you have picked and nothing to do with regens. For example, if you load all Spain and play with only the English leagues active, it might be that the Premier League gets taken over by Spanish talent due to the higher number of players of that nationality in the game. So this is not really going to be a problem when there are so few Liechtenstein players in the game (and none of Premier League quality, I would wager!)

The load all player function is really only for loading small nations into the game anyway. Few people seem to realise this. There is little point in loading any major nation into the game because it is likely that there will already be enough players of that nationality in the game. When loading all players from big nations like England for instance, all you are doing is adding thousands of low reputation, low ability players to your game and slowing it down. However, loading Luxembourg, for instance, would add less than one hundred players and will allow the country to be managed while barely registering any kind of effect on the overall game speed or detail.

[JBZ]

Interesting, particualrly the research by Crouchaldinho.
Anyway, hopefully the Liechtenstein data will be improved in the next update, and they will be playable from the start.

[crouchaldinho]

Anyway, hopefully the Liechtenstein data will be improved in the next update, and they will be playable from the start.

Bit optimistic that, I'm afraid.

It is such a tiny nation with without a league of their own and only an amateur cup to compete in. It is impressive that SI have managed to research as much as they have.

[Valonz]

I've always wanted to manage Albania and make them world champions, so this post will help me try and achieve that.

[crouchaldinho]

Once the Swiss leagues are sorted out after the next patch, I will definitely be doing a FC Vaduz / Liechtenstein challenge!

[Valonz]

I just found out that Albania is available to manage if you load all players from Albania but it might also be because I created a team with 18 Albanian players making it available, don't know. '-'

[JBZ]

Bit optimistic that, I'm afraid.

It is such a tiny nation with without a league of their own and only an amateur cup to compete in. It is impressive that SI have managed to research as much as they have.

Well, I managed to find the information on the internet from the official websites of liechtenstein + club teams (despite not being able to speak German), & have posted in the data forum, so hopefully my optimism is not ungrounded.

[crouchaldinho]

I just found out that Albania is available to manage if you load all players from Albania but it might also be because I created a team with 18 Albanian players making it available, don't know. '-'

They are available to manage I one of my saves and I didn't even load all players from Albania so they must have enough players playing in the leagues I have loaded.

[Valonz]

They are available to manage I one of my saves and I didn't even load all players from Albania so they must have enough players playing in the leagues I have loaded.

I could never start with them without loading all players though but now I found out hehe

[crouchaldinho]

Well, I managed to find the information on the internet from the official websites of liechtenstein + club teams (despite not being able to speak German), & have posted in the data forum, so hopefully my optimism is not ungrounded.

JBZ, that is awesome news. Well done to you for making the effort to post up the details.

Might be a little bit late for the next patch though (as I hear it is out before Xmas).

But a big from me for doing that.

[adamjonajones]

That would be soooo broing, Manage better International team instead... Stuff the challange it a game remember

[Valonz]

Challenges are better Adam and the game more exciting and fun to play, it's not fun when you play teams off the pitch and win the games with 3-4 goals more than your opponent

[Cigol]

You need 150 players to manage a national side I believe.

Why not try editing the nationality of some nobodies in the game and continue for a bit to see whether the job opens up?

[crouchaldinho]

Cigol, if you read the thread we've proved that is a myth. Somewhere between 45-50 players are needed.

[small Mac]

2) Starting a game in England with an inactive FC Vaduz as a feeder club for an active English team resulted in FC Vaduz generating 2 regens (as suggested above by MadWooster).

So, to get Liechtenstein in the game using the feeder club method would most likely take around 7 or 8 years (possibly longer)!

One problem i have noticed with relying on feeder clubs from non-active leagues is that they do not always produce newgens every season. For example i had Dinamo Tbilisi as a feeder club, but they produced only 4 players over the course of 5 seasons before i got rid of them. I think the game maybe will restrict newgens, even from feeder clubs, in order to maintain a balance of nationalities similar to the level seen when the save-game was initially created.

Crouchie, did you carry through the game with Vaduz as a feeder club to the point where Liechtenstein became playable? I would be quite interested to know whether the feeder club approach in your example was successful.

[glamdring]

Well it seems that i'm wrong, if glamdring and Ter's posts are anything to go by. I wonder why Germany hasn't become active yet though, there are more than enough Newgens for me to make a squad out of, does it not become active until the squad is full of newgens? ATM it has about 18 active players and 5 greys, perhaps those grey spots have to be filled as well before it becomes active

Germany are a whole different kettle of fish. They have enough players at the start of a game so that isn't what stops them from being managed. For them to become active the game would have to include a way of only allowing you to pick players who are regens even though loads more players exist in the game, etc, etc. That would be a bit strange because the grey players they normally use are good players of roughly the expected level. If you took them over at some point you'd suddenly have to start playing a load of 20 year old regens or whatever so I'm guessing that Germany just aren't manageable at any point in the game, irrespective of how many regens there are.


As for the idea of including players from specific nations unbalancing the game, I'd say the same as crouchaldinho - if you include all English players you'll get a vast number of non-entities added to the already large number of good or decent English players. Including smaller nations who only have ~350 players anyway doesn't imbalance anything all that much. I've had the odd world class Faroese regen in FM06/FM07 games come through at some club, but in terms of numbers they don't fluctuate much from what you start with.

People saying it provides an imbalance or is unrealistic seem to be overlooking the fact that a game world in which there are no Faroese (or whatever small nation you choose) players at all is at least as unrealistic and more so.

[crouchaldinho]

Crouchie, did you carry through the game with Vaduz as a feeder club to the point where Liechtenstein became playable? I would be quite interested to know whether the feeder club approach in your example was successful.

I'm afraid I didn't have the patience for that. I went on holiday for about 3 seasons and saw 2 regens come through each season.

You may well be right in what you are saying about the game restricting the number of regens/newgens coming in from non-active clubs.

[Ozzy38]

That would be soooo broing, Manage better International team instead... Stuff the challange

Wrong.

1010

[crouchaldinho]

Quite right Ozzy38.

Much more satisfying to play with a minnow and try to build something with them.

Equally true of club management, I find. I never start at the top because I think it would be boring. I work my way up and earn the right to manage at the top, either by taking a club there or improving my reputation and taking on a big job.

[Ozzy38]

Netherlands Antilles was pretty fun although there weren't many matches and my first World Cup Qualifying match I just so happened to draw the USA.

However I only lost 2 or 3-0 on aggregate so yay?

[small Mac]

Netherlands Antilles was pretty fun although there weren't many matches and my first World Cup Qualifying match I just so happened to draw the USA.

However I only lost 2 or 3-0 on aggregate so yay?

I've got an Ajax game going and created some made up feeder clubs to try and get certain nations playable, Netherlands Antilles was one of them. I think they are manageable from the start with retain player function anyway? Which competitions do they play in btw?

Also set up feeder clubs from Aruba, Surinam and Sint Maarten. I think the first two are available for management now but not sure about Sint Maarten, but they're not FIFA affiliated anyway.

[Jack Rudd]

All four of the nations you mentioned are affiliated to North America. (Yes, I know Surinam is in South America in real life.) So they'd be in the Gold Cup and the North American World Cup qualifiers.

[Ozzy38]

I think they are manageable from the start with retain player function anyway? Which competitions do they play in btw?

Yup. This is in FM 07, it was only friendlies and the first (I think) round of North American World Cup qualifying. You would have to raise Netherlands Antilles hundreds of places to be able to be considered for the Gold Cup.

[crouchaldinho]

Just wondered if anyone is having fun managing international minnows on FM10? Any good stories?

[AjaxNo1]

I tried Norway (I know they arent that bad) but I olny had about 100 players to pick from and not 1 right back, I came up with a plan to make one by buying a 16 year old right winger and training him, but got bored to quickly for this to work and left Norway

[Recury]

Managing Brunei along with my club. We drew with Mongolia, beat Maldives and lost to everyone else. Can't wait until my contract runs out, lol.

[thebluesigns]

Hmmm, Slovenia U21's anyone? I've got a grand total of about 30 players to pick from, all of whom are fairly rubbish. Being honest, I'm slightly regretting signing the contract...

[endtime]

Just wondered if anyone is having fun managing international minnows on FM10? Any good stories?

I played with Malta, got hammered in 4 games and was promptly sacked. Great story, I know

[Thedore]

If regens are truly random then i guess the event you want is random too.

[crouchaldinho]

If regens are truly random then i guess the event you want is random too.

[polskaGOLA]

In my old Siracusa game I got a PA 174 San Marinese regen, but after he got picked up by Palermo I think, and he eventually god Italian citizenship and ended up playing for Italy.

[Jawaad]

I havent got FM 2010 yet, but it seems like you cannot load all players from a specific nation at the begining and therefore manage them straight away?

[crouchaldinho]

Yes you can load all players from a nation on FM10 Jawaad.