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[FM 13.3] USA Expansion v1: MLS, NASL, USL PRO, PDL, NPSL, NCAA


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Wasn't is possible to stop all takeovers in a nation except those from within, i.e. chairman leaves and another board member takes over. I remember doing something like this when I tried this for FM11. I think it was an edt file. I'll check this out later when I get a chance.

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Paul could you send me your data please so i can create this for fm

12 for my own personal use if you could to lakeplacidkid@aol.com if you would please if at all possible thanks t27

The data is what it is in this download and will not work with FM12 However, I did start doing this for FM12 last year so might have some FM12 data on my old comp. I'll have a look when I get a chance.

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Does the NCAA inter-conference counts for something? Like playoff qualification?
In FM11 I did it that inter-conference groups counted towards NCAA championship. This year I've kept it simple and qualification is through normal conference or conference championships. So inter-conference dont count for any qualification at the moment
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If anyone wants to contribute to a detailed NCAA database they're working on one over at FMNorthAmerica. I tend to prefer to leave the PDL instead, as the leagues tend to share a player pool to some extent. Both options are prone to bugs but it's already in the DB so I go with it. My database has the US down to PDL and some Canadian leagues with lots of player histories and stuff added to both -- though I didn't do anything with the advanced editor, so I have to defer to your NASL scheduling and stuff.

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Good luck with this paulgerty. I loved the FM11 version and even created logos for every NCAA soccer team and a bunch of other lower league teams.

Hopefully some issues like teams going semi-pro, and the age thing gets fixed. (and probably some other things)

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The fact that only 9 conferences generate youth players will be a big problem later on. It's strange that non of the other conferences get populated with players at the beginning of the game. There just won't be enough players to fill teams after a few years. I tested to 2020 for example and most teams had very small squads, sometimes less than 14 players.

In order to combat this I'm running a test where I have left 7 conferences as they are and moved all other NCAA teams into the remaining two divisions that were the ADL (I had to use two because if I put them into one, wouldn't generate youth players so I guess there must have been too many teams). The benefit of this is that all NCAA teams start with a full squad of players, and all 204 teams get an intake of youth players at the start of every season. Also any NCAA player can be drafted to MLS.

The downside is that you can only manage in 7 of the conferences, namely ACC, A10, Big East Red and Blue, B10, Ivy League and P-12. The other conferences are still there just greyed out when adding a manager. The conferences still schedule games, still record competition winnrers, still qualify for their respective post season tournaments etc. No conference awards are handed out.

While it's a shame you can't control any of the teams from these other conferences, the fact the teams wouldn't have any players to start with means it would be rather unplayable anyway.

I just started a test run and will leave it going today to see how the teams look after a few years and if there are enough regens to make this worthwhile and how squads in NASL, USL Pro etc look. USL PDL will still probably be a problem as NCAA players are draft protected until a certain age, and PDL has age limits for over-23s.

It's important to remember that this is not a bug in the game. The US was designed to populate the MLS only through the draft and academies.

Using the basic editor its possible to redo the US so all teams will get youth players, but then of course you lose everything else.

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By the way, I've also redone the USL Pro in my latest build to reflect the changes for the upcoming 2013 season. The 13 teams play home/away giving 24 matches plus are paired with the correct MLS Reserve side. The result of the 2 games against MLS reserve teams counts to the overall standings in USL Pro (although not in MLS Reserve league). 8 teams are in the playoffs.

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If you need any help getting this accurate in NPSL, let me know. I can help with that.

Thanks it was difficult to find info on NPSL. Do you know anything about squad/match rules i.e. roster size, age limits, transfer windows etc. I found info of other leagues but not NPSL.

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I believe it is a 26 man squad. I don't think there are any restrictions on foreign players. There were no restrictions on the transfer window; Cleveland added and dropped players throughout the season. I believe match day squad is 18, with 5 possible subs.

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How did the test go?

I've decided to move all NCAA teams into one division and make this a playable level under NPSL. This serves as the inter-conference games with all teams split into 17 groups of 12 teams each.

This means that all NCAA teams are manageable, all of the teams generate youth players and the SuperDraft can happen from any NCAA team. The conferences are run as an "other division" and work normally qualifying teams to their post season tournament and then the NCAA DI Championship.

I haven't fully tested this yet but the situation was a little better. NASL and USL Pro teams seemed by 2019 to have smallish squads, PDL was worse as I expected. NCAA teams didn't have so many ineligible overage players but most teams still had a few.

I've also redone the NASL and USL Pro so that in 2014 the relevant teams are added. I haven't updated the US Open Cup yet, but that shouldn't be too hard.

I'm going to run another test tonight to see how squads will look after a few years.

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Really interested in this one paulgerty. Let us know how the test goes, would love to check it out. The PDL is tricky, since you can't get teams to play on 2 different teams, which they do since many NCAA players fill out PDL teams. Also would be nice if the AI realized they needed to release overagers, but not much we can do there

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Something odd things happened tonight while playing the original file. I was manager of McLean Youth, a academy-level and lowest-tier side. After I won the championship I tried to apply to hire level jobs and kept constantly getting denied. I thought that was just because even with winning the title, the reputation of the league is so low that my reputation wasn't substantially increased enough to get higher jobs. I played another season, losing out in the finals, and then applying to about 15 different jobs at the same time. This time I realized that the clubs were "flattered" by my interest, but couldn't afford to pay compensation ($2,500/m with two months left), so I resigned. I was immediately offered a position at PDL side Ocean City FC, that I accepted. I tried to pick up some of my old players but when going to the contract screen, the minimum fee release clause was at (-1), highlighted, and no matter what I changed it to was still highlighted. I can't remove it or modify it so I can't offer a contract.

By the way, it's a great file! I'm very familiar with the college soccer structure here having worked for a women's college soccer team in the US. If you need some help with identifying confusing things please feel free to PM me or write in this thread. I'm happy to help. One piece of advice though: The names of university's sports teams are known as one thing officially and another commonly. For example, Georgetown University Hoyas is the full name, but in all other screens it should just be Georgetown or Georgetown Hoyas. We almost never use "college" or "university" when we say or write their names unless we are distinguishing between two universities with the same name. I'd be happy to do this for you quickly if you need it.

Dave

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I tried to pick up some of my old players but when going to the contract screen, the minimum fee release clause was at (-1), highlighted, and no matter what I changed it to was still highlighted. I can't remove it or modify it so I can't offer a contract.

I've noticed this too while I was managing a PDL team even some free transfers had this meaning I couldn't sign them. I must look into that later on.

The names of university's sports teams are known as one thing officially and another commonly. For example, Georgetown University Hoyas is the full name, but in all other screens it should just be Georgetown or Georgetown Hoyas. We almost never use "college" or "university" when we say or write their names unless we are distinguishing between two universities with the same name.

I realize that the University or College title is rarely used. I was thinking about how to name them and whether to include the nickname in the short name or not. I went with including it as some universities (although granted not many) would have the same name as professional teams, portland for example. I'll still think about it.

The test went relatively well. In 2022 NASL clubs generally had pretty healthy squads with plenty of American regens, even the 3 teams which joined the league in 2014. USL Pro was similar. PDL is a worse situation, most clubs have only a few players, most of them are over 25. NPSL was a little better.

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  • SI Staff

Good to see someone is working on this, though I would have loved to collaborate. FMNA (official home of the US/Canadian data teams) has been working on an NCAA file rebuilt from the massive FM10 expansion we did. Getting people to work together could help build a much better, more expansive North American landscape. I'd love to take a look at your file, and if you want to team up at some point on future stuff for the US/Canada please get in touch here or over at www.fmnorthamerica.com

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I've notice you can only register squad numbers from 1-30 - this means that any players registered without a squad number can't play (because the game requires you to submit the squad numbers, and there aren't any free.)

I also noticed for some reason that there are two registration windows, is this intended?

(NCAA)

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Confused on the relationship between the academies and the NCAA. Should a player progress from Academies to the NCAA, or right to MLS/professional leagues? Seems like the academy players are much younger then the NCAA players, but there is some overlap. Just wondered what your thoughts are on that. I did modify the NCAA teams to not allow transfers, haven't tested how well that will work though.

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I noticed in that in the new update in the Developmental League teams are made up almost entirely of ineligible 18+ players. This is to start out with, I'm not sure if it fixes as time goes on

It seems to only happen with clubs unaffiliated with MLS teams and after a couple months seems to be fixing itself somewhat

Another error I had after one season is the NCAA tournament which should have been scheduled after the 2012 season is being scheduled for November 2013, I know this was mentioned in the OP but I don't know the extent it was being delayed for you

Game breaking error too, it seems to crash 10 months into every game. I originally started in January and it crashed in November then tried starting in September and it crashed next July

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I noticed in that in the new update in the Developmental League teams are made up almost entirely of ineligible 18+ players. This is to start out with, I'm not sure if it fixes as time goes on

It seems to only happen with clubs unaffiliated with MLS teams and after a couple months seems to be fixing itself somewhat

This seems to be a problem with the game itself, I remember seeing it mentioned in the bugs forum somewhere

Another error I had after one season is the NCAA tournament which should have been scheduled after the 2012 season is being scheduled for November 2013, I know this was mentioned in the OP but I don't know the extent it was being delayed for you

I haven't noticed this happening, but then again 90% of the test runs I've done have started in 2013, so I may have missed it.

Game breaking error too, it seems to crash 10 months into every game. I originally started in January and it crashed in November then tried starting in September and it crashed next July

Can you provide any extra info on the crash, do you have any other editor files loaded for example. I haven't had a crash for ages with these builds.

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It is with nothing loaded, first time was using the generic US start date and the second with Indonesia loaded just to provide another start date. I'll try to duplicate it again in a little while but it happened the two times I tried to sim through

By Indonesia loaded I mean the SI one not an editor file

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Tested it again and November 26 is the day that it crashes

Is that 2012? I've usually tested with a 2013 start date and everything has been fine, I might have missed something in the code for 2012 which is causing the crash. NASL, USL Pro and US Open Cup each have specific code for 2012 and 2013 before changing in 2014. If its 2012 you have the crash then its probably something in there, shouldn't be too hard to find its just I can't do any testing at the moment.

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Is that 2012? I've usually tested with a 2013 start date and everything has been fine, I might have missed something in the code for 2012 which is causing the crash. NASL, USL Pro and US Open Cup each have specific code for 2012 and 2013 before changing in 2014. If its 2012 you have the crash then its probably something in there, shouldn't be too hard to find its just I can't do any testing at the moment.
Yeah it is 2012, I tried it with Canada loaded for good measure and it still happens
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I'll be going away for a few weeks so I won't be working on this file, but my return should coincide nicely with the data update, which should be early March once the transfer windows are all shut.

I've checked the default and update databases for FM12 and I notice that changes were made, such as Montreal being removed from American Second Division and new PDL allignment done. Therefore, I would expect the same case to happen this time, so NY Cosmos should be activated and added to American Second, VSI and Phoenix should already be in American Third and I would hope that 2013 PDL teams will be done. Once the update is released and I return I'll work on fixing any issues it will cause and I will try to release a new version. I doubt the 2014 expansion teams will be added to the database but you never know.

I'm noticing that young players in the USA are asking for very high wages. I'm managing in the USL Pro at the moment and 17/18 year olds are asking for wages of $300 or so. For comparison, Man Utd's youth players are on about $90 a week. Hopefully changing the wage settings in the nations tab and division contract types would help this. The problem is obviously teams don't have the money to spend so much on youth players to fill out their U20 teams.

Overall I may need to do something about finances as teams below MLS are stuggling with money. I can't find any info on any prize money or TV money for levels below MLS, so if anyone knows anything I'd appreciate it.

I'll also do NCAA Conference realignments for 2013.

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  • 2 weeks later...
when next update paul

Should be this weekend. Other than MLS transfers, the update database has not made any changes that I can see to the US, just adding NY Cosmos to American Second. The plus of this is that my file is still working, still with no failed changes. I've made the Cosmos that SI created extinct to continue using my own. Interesting as in previous years I think the teams in other US leagues were updated, this year they haven't been touched.

So far I've added/removed/renamed the necessary teams in the PDL and reduced the number of league games from 16 to 14 to reflect changes for this season.

I still don't know the exact structure of the NPSL yet, or how USL Pro teams will enter US Cup, but I'll do some testing and try and release an update this weekend.

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Will January 2013 be an option for the starting point?

You can always load a league which starts on January 2013 (most South American ones, for example, except Argentina and Uruguay) and set it as View Only if you don't want it to slow a little bit your game.

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You can always load a league which starts on January 2013 (most South American ones, for example, except Argentina and Uruguay) and set it as View Only if you don't want it to slow a little bit your game.

That is what I ended up doing! Does anyone know where I can get a facepack for DC United since that is who I am playing as?

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