[FM19] Real Life USA-Canada Expansion by Uncle Sam (Now compatible with 19.3)

[LandonDonovan10]

23 dakika önce, Uncle_Sam said:

MAJOR UPDATE BEING RELEASED SOON

After much (MUCH) testing and experimentation, I will be releasing a pretty huge update to the file this weekend. One of the glaring issues with the file was that not enough American newgens were being developed to support the larger number of teams in the database. I figured out a way to cheat the system and now there are 350+ youth clubs generating a youth intake every year. Every youth club is either the academy of an existing club or a real life youth club.

Major Changes:

-Drastically increased number of Youth players generated by adding over 270 youth clubs (non-playable).

-Adjusted Competition and Club reputations to hopefully better represent the flow of players from youth to the professional leagues

-It will now be possible to select all of the expansion clubs, including Inter Miami (expansion clubs not in one of the USL leagues can be found in the new "US Expansion Clubs" division).

-Improved (hopefully) the squad selection rules for every division below MLS, including the NCAA.

-Added the new USL Championship rule that adds a fourth substitution for extra time in the playoffs.

-Revamped the at-large selection process for the NCAA tournament so that a few slots go to the strongest conferences.

-Fixed the issue in Canada where a couple of clubs we being placed into the CSL Second Division AND their primary competition.

Is it possible to share update this week?

[Uncle_Sam]

2 minutes ago, LandonDonovan10 said:

Is it possible to share update this week?

Yes, I'm running a final long-term test now. As long as every runs smooth I should be releasing it by tomorrow at the latest.

[meter]

Thanks for all your labor on this.

Looking forward to starting as an Acadmey club, have you had chance to look at issue raised couple of posts ahead of this?  

 

[Wild Dog]

First of all - incredible work!

I was wondering what the salary cap of the MLS is? I find the (real life) salary cap to be an obstacle for MLS to be a world class league - I would like to make MLS the best league in the (FM) world - like NBA or NFL in real life, but that's impossible with the current salary cap.. Is it possible that you can make a different version with a much higher cap - or just describe how I can do it myself (I have some advanced editor experience...)

Also I have another question. Would it be possible to create a new US league structure from scratch with the editor that includes the MLS (with draft and trades), 1 development league and NCAA? (Again, NBA inspired..)

Looking forward to your next update, which I will check out in-game as well as in the editor.

Best regards

[Betahouse91]

vor 8 Stunden schrieb Uncle_Sam:

MAJOR UPDATE BEING RELEASED SOON

After much (MUCH) testing and experimentation, I will be releasing a pretty huge update to the file this weekend. One of the glaring issues with the file was that not enough American newgens were being developed to support the larger number of teams in the database. I figured out a way to cheat the system and now there are 350+ youth clubs generating a youth intake every year. Every youth club is either the academy of an existing club or a real life youth club.

Major Changes:

-Drastically increased number of Youth players generated by adding over 270 youth clubs (non-playable).

-Adjusted Competition and Club reputations to hopefully better represent the flow of players from youth to the professional leagues

-It will now be possible to select all of the expansion clubs, including Inter Miami (expansion clubs not in one of the USL leagues can be found in the new "US Expansion Clubs" division).

-Improved (hopefully) the squad selection rules for every division below MLS, including the NCAA.

-Added the new USL Championship rule that adds a fourth substitution for extra time in the playoffs.

-Revamped the at-large selection process for the NCAA tournament so that a few slots go to the strongest conferences.

-Fixed the issue in Canada where a couple of clubs we being placed into the CSL Second Division AND their primary competition.

Have you also corrected the wrong transfers (for example: Max Mayer, Samir Nasri etc.)?

[Uncle_Sam]

39 minutes ago, Wild Dog said:

First of all - incredible work!

I was wondering what the salary cap of the MLS is? I find the (real life) salary cap to be an obstacle for MLS to be a world class league - I would like to make MLS the best league in the (FM) world - like NBA or NFL in real life, but that's impossible with the current salary cap.. Is it possible that you can make a different version with a much higher cap - or just describe how I can do it myself (I have some advanced editor experience...)

Also I have another question. Would it be possible to create a new US league structure from scratch with the editor that includes the MLS (with draft and trades), 1 development league and NCAA? (Again, NBA inspired..)

Looking forward to your next update, which I will check out in-game as well as in the editor.

Best regards

The real life Salary Cap is something like $4.25M this season. As for making a different version, I'm not sure I would be able to without breaking a lot of the MLS transfer system. SI really teased us on that front by making a lot of those MLS squad rules visible (Designated Players, MLS International Players, etc). However, it seems no matter what I set them at in the fixture rules in the editor everything remains default in-game. So apparently it's hard-coded. Overriding the nation rules makes all of those things able to be edited, but if I do that then the MLS transfer system is gone. Meaning, no trades, no allocation money, no acquiring draft picks (and I didn't test far enough to see if the drafts even still work), etc. That should also kind of answer your second question, as well. Any overriding of the US nation rules appear to remove the trade system.

[Uncle_Sam]

6 minutes ago, Betahouse91 said:

Have you also corrected the wrong transfers (for example: Max Mayer, Samir Nasri etc.)?

Yes, all of those are gone. Inter Miami will now start with a clean slate, unless you tick the box to add players to playable teams (which I actually recommend you do).

[dim13]

Uncle_Sam,

Thank you so much for all of the work you've put into this wonderful project and for sharing it with us.  Awesome job !!

Question:

When setting up a new game with your file, if I were to only select MLS and not have all of the other USA leagues, would I still get all of the features you've added such as the increased number of youth players and all of the nice stuff you've done with player development, etc ?

 

[Betahouse91]

vor 9 Stunden schrieb Uncle_Sam:

Yes, all of those are gone. Inter Miami will now start with a clean slate, unless you tick the box to add players to playable teams (which I actually recommend you do).

Really good job, this is the last file I need ^^

[Wild Dog]

10 hours ago, Uncle_Sam said:

The real life Salary Cap is something like $4.25M this season. As for making a different version, I'm not sure I would be able to without breaking a lot of the MLS transfer system. SI really teased us on that front by making a lot of those MLS squad rules visible (Designated Players, MLS International Players, etc). However, it seems no matter what I set them at in the fixture rules in the editor everything remains default in-game. So apparently it's hard-coded. Overriding the nation rules makes all of those things able to be edited, but if I do that then the MLS transfer system is gone. Meaning, no trades, no allocation money, no acquiring draft picks (and I didn't test far enough to see if the drafts even still work), etc. That should also kind of answer your second question, as well. Any overriding of the US nation rules appear to remove the trade system.

Thanks for your answer. Maybe I should try to mess around with the rules and stuff and see what happens.

It's annoying SI doesn't allow us to edit those things and actually make it work.

[Wild Dog]

So it seems I've found a way to increase the salary cap as it's now $10m.

In advanced rules go to "Fixture rules" -> "Rules 0" -> "Squad Selection Deadline Dates" -> click to see details for the first row -> go to "Squad Selection Rules" -> change "Annual Wage (MLS Capped)..." to "Annual Wage" and set cash value to $10m.

Then do the same for row numbers 2 and 3 in "Squad Selection Deadline Dates".

[LandonDonovan10]

22 dakika önce, Wild Dog said:

So it seems I've found a way to increase the salary cap as it's now $10m.

In advanced rules go to "Fixture rules" -> "Rules 0" -> "Squad Selection Deadline Dates" -> click to see details for the first row -> go to "Squad Selection Rules" -> change "Annual Wage (MLS Capped)..." to "Annual Wage" and set cash value to $10m.

Then do the same for row numbers 2 and 3 in "Squad Selection Deadline Dates".

Wow that's great thank you man! I hope mls does that one day  

[Uncle_Sam]

2 hours ago, Wild Dog said:

So it seems I've found a way to increase the salary cap as it's now $10m.

In advanced rules go to "Fixture rules" -> "Rules 0" -> "Squad Selection Deadline Dates" -> click to see details for the first row -> go to "Squad Selection Rules" -> change "Annual Wage (MLS Capped)..." to "Annual Wage" and set cash value to $10m.

Then do the same for row numbers 2 and 3 in "Squad Selection Deadline Dates".

That is a good find. I had always used the squad selection rules at the bottom and I couldn't figure out why the game was ignoring what was I doing. Thanks!

[Fmfan00]

Can’t wait until 2.4 then I can start Cpl

[meter]

3 hours ago, Wild Dog said:

So it seems I've found a way to increase the salary cap as it's now $10m.

In advanced rules go to "Fixture rules" -> "Rules 0" -> "Squad Selection Deadline Dates" -> click to see details for the first row -> go to "Squad Selection Rules" -> change "Annual Wage (MLS Capped)..." to "Annual Wage" and set cash value to $10m.

Then do the same for row numbers 2 and 3 in "Squad Selection Deadline Dates".

Let us know how it goes, curious to see if clubs attract same caliber players but just pay them more.

[dim13]

3 hours ago, Wild Dog said:

...change "Annual Wage (MLS Capped)..." to "Annual Wage"...

Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see an "Annual Wage" in the drop down list.   

I see options for "Annual Salary" and "Annual Wage Except Designated Players Including Released Player Salary". 

Which should "Annual Wage (MLS Capped)..." be changed to ?

Thanks

 

Edited January 6, 2019 by dim13

[Uncle_Sam]

Sincere apologies but I had a little issue with the USSDA. Release will hopefully be tomorrow.

[hammer 12]

adjusting the wage cap is cool, but does it change the contracts, they are hard coded as well probably. so u can have a 10 million budget but the most u can pay a senior player is capped.

[LandonDonovan10]

16 saat önce, Wild Dog said:

So it seems I've found a way to increase the salary cap as it's now $10m.

In advanced rules go to "Fixture rules" -> "Rules 0" -> "Squad Selection Deadline Dates" -> click to see details for the first row -> go to "Squad Selection Rules" -> change "Annual Wage (MLS Capped)..." to "Annual Wage" and set cash value to $10m.

Then do the same for row numbers 2 and 3 in "Squad Selection Deadline Dates".

Can you share your file? I tried but when I tested on editor gave me error so I can't select my file on the game

[LandonDonovan10]

man i cant beat this stupid error

[Dallan]

14 hours ago, hammer 12 said:

adjusting the wage cap is cool, but does it change the contracts, they are hard coded as well probably. so u can have a 10 million budget but the most u can pay a senior player is capped.

Yes, the screenshot doesn't look like that amount has changed so even if the tweak works (and I haven't had time to test) it'll mostly mean you can pay more capped Senior contracts but not pay any particular player more money.

There's a hardcoded rise in the salary cap after the first season that raises the Senior contract cap accordingly but they apparently didn't expose the method they used to do so to the editor. I will continue to live in hope that the next MLS CBA has some sort of scaling salary cap like hockey so we don't have to deal with this every year.

18 hours ago, dim13 said:

Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see an "Annual Wage" in the drop down list.   

I see options for "Annual Salary" and "Annual Wage Except Designated Players Including Released Player Salary". 

Which should "Annual Wage (MLS Capped)..." be changed to ?

Thanks

 

You're probably using the editor in English-US language: the option you want is "Annual Salary" (though both Annual Salary and Annual Wage Except... will change the cap number to whatever you set, and, again, I haven't had time to examine whether there's a difference between the two in how they work out).

[Wild Dog]

15 hours ago, hammer 12 said:

adjusting the wage cap is cool, but does it change the contracts, they are hard coded as well probably. so u can have a 10 million budget but the most u can pay a senior player is capped.

Well. It seems you're right...

I tried to set wage cap to $150m and it looks right on the league rules, but in finances it's still $4m as usual - and I can't offer higher wages either.

[Ruh Roh]

I tried making a normal U18s team for Miami and putting it in the academy division, the link seems to work but it doesn't generate any players. Copying the MLS academies generates players, but the link to Miami is broken so it's just another PA Classics, etc. kind of team. If there's a cheesy way to give them an intake, adding more future expansion teams shouldn't be hard

[PaMi 7]

 

Il 2/1/2019 in 01:01 , wkdsoul ha scritto:

take em out in the editor, it not that hard.   There are a few threads from graaa and Sam on  US already. 

I asked because, if Uncle Sam do this file, I start with this file as a good basis

Il 4/1/2019 in 14:39 , Uncle_Sam ha scritto:

I haven't decided if I will do that or not. This file is a lot of work, and setting up a Pro/Rel USA would be more work. I always tell people, however, that my file is open source. You are welcome to take the data and remove the rules and start over and even re-release your version.

Ok, thank you for you answer

[Uncle_Sam]

1 hour ago, Ruh Roh said:

I tried making a normal U18s team for Miami and putting it in the academy division, the link seems to work but it doesn't generate any players. Copying the MLS academies generates players, but the link to Miami is broken so it's just another PA Classics, etc. kind of team. If there's a cheesy way to give them an intake, adding more future expansion teams shouldn't be hard

Yes, sadly because of hard coding there is no way to replicat the MLS Academy dynamic. I got around it with Nashville SC by using the extinct Chivas USA and their Academy. I guess SI left the hard coding in for Chivas even though they're extinct. I've tried a lot of different things to make the Academy link work for Miami; B Club, etc, but all of them keep the Academy team from generating a youth intake.

[Fmfan00]

Soon as Uncle Sam releases it it will be fm19 tonight along with fm19 YouTube late Xmas present lol

[Uncle_Sam]

8 hours ago, Wild Dog said:

Well. It seems you're right...

I tried to set wage cap to $150m and it looks right on the league rules, but in finances it's still $4m as usual - and I can't offer higher wages either.

 

Yea as far as I can tell the salary cap is hard-coded. However, I have been able to change the number of designated player slots available by editing the number in  the squad rules here.

[dim13]

3 minutes ago, Uncle_Sam said:

...I have been able to change the number of designated player slots available by editing the number in  the squad rules here.

Same here.  I tried this last night, testing and at one point LAFC had 5 DPs.

[Uncle_Sam]

LATEST UPDATE RELEASED!!

Original post has been updated with the latest version of the file. (USA-Canada Expansion 2.19)

[Fmfan00]

Is 2.19 the 2.4?

 

🙌 to Uncle Sam 

[raeburn]

Is there a way to add real fixtures to the advanced rules? I had made a file previously with the real fixtures and results for the 2018 MLS season using basic rules, but can't figure out how to merge that with this file. Is it possible?

[Uncle_Sam]

9 hours ago, Fmfan00 said:

Is 2.19 the 2.4?

 

🙌 to Uncle Sam 

Lol, yes. I blew right past the 2.4. As I said, this was a big update.

[Uncle_Sam]

7 hours ago, raeburn said:

Is there a way to add real fixtures to the advanced rules? I had made a file previously with the real fixtures and results for the 2018 MLS season using basic rules, but can't figure out how to merge that with this file. Is it possible?

Can you send me the file? I'll have a look and see if I can make it work.

[dim13]

16 hours ago, Uncle_Sam said:

Yes, sadly because of hard coding there is no way to replicat the MLS Academy dynamic. I got around it with Nashville SC by using the extinct Chivas USA and their Academy. I guess SI left the hard coding in for Chivas even though they're extinct. I've tried a lot of different things to make the Academy link work for Miami; B Club, etc, but all of them keep the Academy team from generating a youth intake.

Uncle_Sam,

What about using an existing Academy in the game (that's not currently affiliated with an MLS club) and assigning one of those academies to Nashville SC ?  Would that work ?  There are many academies in the game not currently associated with an MLS team.

[CamDMC]

So if I swap out an NPSL Midwest team with an NPSL Northeast team will it populate. Because thus far the NPSL teams that don't populate are the semi-pro teams that don't pay a salary. 

[Dallan]

On 07/01/2019 at 22:59, raeburn said:

Is there a way to add real fixtures to the advanced rules? I had made a file previously with the real fixtures and results for the 2018 MLS season using basic rules, but can't figure out how to merge that with this file. Is it possible?

I've actually already done that myself, and it's a ton of work so I'll save you or Uncle Sam (who has really done enough - great work, dude ) the effort; It is possible but there are several problems with it:

a) the panel for fixtures in basic rules isn't the same as the panel for fixtures in advanced rules, so you can't just copy-paste in the editor, you have to export the file as XML and edit that,

b) the XML schema for fixtures in basic rules isn't the same as the format for fixtures in advanced rules, so you can't even copy-paste the XML from the basic rules file to an advanced rules file without converting it first,

For an example, here is a single "real fixture" in the basic rules XML:

<record>
  <date id="date" day="3" month="3" year="2018" time="0"/>
  <string id="time" value="1300"/>
  <record id="home_team_id"><integer id="Ttea" value="72000789"/></record>
  <record id="away_team_id"><integer id="Ttea" value="1904"/></record>
  <integer id="home_goals" value="0"/><integer id="away_goals" value="2"/>
</record>

and here is the same fixture in the advanced rules XML:

<record>
  <integer id="day_of_month" value="3"/><integer id="month" value="3"/><integer id="year" value="2018"/>
  <string id="time" value="1300"/>
  <record id="home_team_id"><integer id="Ttea" value="72000789"/></record>
  <record id="away_team_id"><integer id="Ttea" value="1904"/></record>
  <integer id="home_goals" value="0"/><integer id="away_goals" value="2"/>
</record>

There are, of course, 391 of these in the 2018 MLS season so non-masochists would want to use a regular expression search-replace to do this (which, traditionally, is one more problem).

In Notepad++, the expression is:

find: <date id="date" day="(\d+)" month="(\d+)" year="(\d+)" time="0"/>

replace: <integer id="day_of_month" value="\1"/><integer id="month" value="\2"/><integer id="year" value="\3"/>

But to save time I've attached the converted version below in a text file, you'd need to copy and paste it into the XML of this edit, replacing the "<list id="league fixtures"/>" (the second league fixtures line in this section, and it'll break if you replace the wrong one) in the section that looks like this (you should be fine just searching for "usa_mls_2018" to find it in the XML):

<list id="league_fixtures">
	<record>
		<list id="league_fixtures"/>
      	<integer id="year" value="2018"/>
		<integer id="index" value="0"/>
	</record>
</list>
<string id="file" value="usa_mls_2018"/>
<integer id="XSvC" value="15"/>

c) for some weird reason, even after you've done all that, if your real fixtures include real results (that is, if the fixtures entries have home_goals and away_goals values), the editor test will throw an error and not properly complete the regular season, so the playoff stages won't be created, so the file won't verify. I haven't been able to figure out why (except that if you remove the scores from your fixtures it doesn't throw the same error, so if you're fine with just having the real fixtures without the real results, then you can remove the score values from the XML, verify, and move on).

But if you want to include the real results, it works fine in game if you export a verified file to XML, edit the XML directly with the changes, then reimport the edited XML and save it in the editor without making any other changes in the editor  (or just create a save using the XML file). 

(if you want to make any changes to the file using the editor while keeping the real results, you will now have to export the file as XML when you're done, manually edit it to mark it as verified (keep a backup copy of the verified file in XML so you can make those changes easily with a file compare tool), then reimport and save or use the XML directly to start a save),

d) for some other weird reason, even after you've done all this, the game doesn't always recognise every division level as verified even though it recognises the file as verified, so the level selector in the Start Game screen doesn't work properly and you can only use the default division level (which is set to 7 in the file, so you're fine to use all the added divisions and teams, but if you want to use fewer levels you'll have to make that change in add/remove leagues after you start, or change the default division level yourself in the USA nation rules). It still works fine ingame, at least.

tl;dr: it's a pain, and if you want to keep the real results along with the fixtures it will require an additional annoying song and dance to convince the game to let you use it, but I've done it so you don't have to and attached it all here.

2018 MLS Fixtures in Advanced Rules XML.txt

004_USA Canada Expansion 2.19 with 2018 MLS Results.fmf

Edited February 7, 2020 by Dallan

[Uncle_Sam]

2 hours ago, dim13 said:

Uncle_Sam,

What about using an existing Academy in the game (that's not currently affiliated with an MLS club) and assigning one of those academies to Nashville SC ?  Would that work ?  There are many academies in the game not currently associated with an MLS team.

Yea, I've tried that. There is definitely a hard-coded link between the default MLS clubs and their Academy. Unfortunately there is just no way to recreate it perfectly. I feel like SI could fix it by making "MLS Academy" one of the affiliation types but until they do there isn't anything I've found that could work.

[Uncle_Sam]

1 hour ago, CamDMC said:

So if I swap out an NPSL Midwest team with an NPSL Northeast team will it populate. Because thus far the NPSL teams that don't populate are the semi-pro teams that don't pay a salary. 

It would actually be more complicated than that. To make the divisions work properly I have each competition specifically getting the correct teams.

[kandersson]

Thanks a lot for this, it's almost like having a new game! This will add so much to my traditional Canada club & country save 

[Wild Dog]

Okay, so it looks like I've finally been able to get rid of the salary cap as every contract is $0 in salary cap impact. However I'm still not able to offer better contracts. Thought I could get around that by upping the number of Designated players, but I can't seem to figure out how. It doesn't work when I change it in "Squad Selection Deadlines -> Squad Selection Rules"...

Has anybody succeeded in allowing more Designated players?

[raeburn]

@Dallan Thank you! That was both extremely thorough and extremely helpful.

[dim13]

Uncle_Sam,

Any chance you can include Austin FC as an MLS expansion team for 2021 in the next update ?

Appears they will officially be announced as MLS team #27 on Tuesday (1/15), links:

https://www.statesman.com/sports/20190108/austin-fc-expected-to-be-officially-recognized-as-27th-mls-team-at-celebration

https://www.prosoccerusa.com/mls/expansion/austin/austin-fc-announces-apparent-launch-event-with-commissioner-garber-on-jan-15/

Thanks

[Uncle_Sam]

When the announcement is made I will work on an update

[cel1234]

Link on 1st page doesnt work

 

[Uncle_Sam]

18 hours ago, cel1234 said:

Link on 1st page doesnt work

 

It's working for me. Is anyone else having an issue?

[Fmfan00]

Uncle sam

 

heres the new drawn up championship pools

[Uncle_Sam]

4 hours ago, Fmfan00 said:

Uncle sam

 

heres the new drawn up championship pools

Thank you. I'll work on getting that in for the next release.

I'll also likely have Austin FC joining MLS in 2021. 

[Uncle_Sam]

Also do you know if the Canadian Championship will have extra time? For some reason I have them going strait to penalties after Away Goals after 90 min.

[Dallan]

12 hours ago, Uncle_Sam said:

Also do you know if the Canadian Championship will have extra time? For some reason I have them going strait to penalties after Away Goals after 90 min.

It will not.

Apparently it did last year so maybe you saw an early report that they'd changed that rule and just forgotten about it.

[Fmfan00]

14 hours ago, Uncle_Sam said:

Also do you know if the Canadian Championship will have extra time? For some reason I have them going strait to penalties after Away Goals after 90 min.

K I just contacted the Forge arc contact.. he said it’s reguar time first leg then second leg if tied it’s extra time then penalties