[FM22] The Corsican Empire - Jeunesse Etoile de Biguglia (French RTG)

[FM-AP]

The Corsican Empire

(S1.0)

Introduction:

Welcome everyone, to my main save for FM22. It has been a long while since I have been this excited to document a save here on the forums and I'm still sort of trying to figure myself out on here and how I want to write these save updates; but I think I have got it. Coming back again to give my go at writing and just talking about my saves, combining two things that I enjoy a lot being writing and playing Football Manager. Unfortunately my previous save (which was planned to be my main save this year) attempting the Youth Academy Challenge with Kehler FV 07, which had to come to a halt after discovering that the database I was using did not have any playable cup competitions deeming the save basically unplayable. 

Anyways, I've been reading through a lot of posts here on the forums which managed to get me back out of my slump following the lost save and get back onto the game for another go. So coming back, I had to give a good think about who I wanted to manage/what I was going to do but I always had a poetic little idea in my head for the save (which I will get to in just a moment.) But my primary thoughts were that I wanted to go to France and that I wanted to go low in their football league system. As a Canadian, I've always had a pretty close association with the French with myself being fluent in the language (I guess you could determine so for yourself), in fact I have lived in France before and have attended plenty of French football matches. With me often going to Racing Club de Lens matches and having had a tour around their training ground, I would call them my own de facto French club. 

So with my love for French football explained out of the way. I scoured the many available websites and steam locations looking for the best French database in the market. I landed at one which looked brilliant, I went ahead and tested it with a couple clubs and even took a look at it in the pre-game editor and realised that it had everything in place for me to use it. So this database took my attention to the lowest it had to offer; Régional 1 divisions (aka Tier 6) which I admit is very low and will be very challenging to bring myself out of - which is why I am drawn to it! Ultimately my next challenge was to find a club - with so many brilliant clubs to choose from it finally fell to Jeunesse Etoile de Biguglia. Now let's find out why!

Why I chose Jeunesse Etoile de Biguglia:

It actually wasn't me who proposed the idea of managing Jeunesse Etoile de Biguglia! It was actually my good friend @Wighty who suggested the club, who proposed the potential story of building up a club that are not based in mainland France to become the largest club in the country; this seemingly interesting concept brought me deeper into research for the save. Turns out they were a Corsican club, (Corsica being a French island south-east of France and west of Italy.) They play in the French Regional 1 - Corse which is the French equivalent of a regional league in tier 6. And their stadium is called the Stade François Monti which has a capacity of 1,000 people. The facilities less impressive though! Anyways, with this club I have a mega-sized challenge on my hands - definitely a long term save that will suffice!

Jeunesse Etoile de Biguglia kits for 2021/22 - made by the legendary @Wighty

Absolutely stunning Jeunesse Etoile de Biguglia kits for the upcoming season, with Wighty again outdoing himself! Using the primary club colours in that cleanly designed home kit, a more traditional black away kit, with a nice compliment in that white colour. And an absolutely stunning third kit, we will absolutely rock playing in blue! Can't wait to load out into the pitch with these. Finally Hummel will be our supplier with an artistic looking sponsor in Collège Biguglia - which I believe is a local school/education centre. If you want detailed and researched kits just like these from the legendary Wighty, completely free of charge - then you'll have to join my own discord server (linked down below.)

The Save Goals:

Now it's time to chat and take a look at the goals for this save. I definitely want to iron down some early objectives so that we can get the save rolling in the right direction and I can make it as fun as possible for myself! But when setting out goals for myself in an FM save, I always ensure that they are achievable - not some outward/chance-based ruleset. Honestly as long as they are easy to follow for both myself and the reader then it's good in my books! So let me know what you think of the aims below...

• Goal #1 - Become the most reputable club in Corsica.
• Goal #2 - Become the most reputable club in France.
• Goal #3 - Reach the top of the French HoF.
• Goal #4 - Make Ligue 1 the best league in Europe.
• Goal #5 - Have a player at the club win the Ballon D'or. 
• Goal #6 - Have a player at the club reach the top 10 in the NxGn award.

Six goals that I am extremely happy with. I think that becoming the most reputable club in Corsica, shouldn't take an obscene amount of time considering a solid but small amount of competition. Now our second goal will definitely be much hard to achieve, with the monopoly of Paris Saint-Germain needing to be toppled before I can even say I have been the best in France, let alone the most reputable! To top the French HoF could also be very difficult, considering I'll have to win 10+ trophies to get in near the top, and that's ignoring any manager that could rise to the top during the save. Making Ligue 1 the best league in the continent will also require a lot of success, not just from me but also the other clubs in the country - which is a big reason as to why I love this goal. Then my two player goals of having a player win the Ballon D'or, hopefully it will be doable if we have an all star team and someone bangs in 40+ goals in a season! And then the NxGn goal in order to encourage signing world class youth, and trying to develop some homegrown lads. 

So there you have my major six goals in the save, I'm sure other smaller things will pop up here and there; and some good storylines and rivalries could be generated in the duration of the save. Hopefully this adds to your excitement and anticipation for the upcoming save! It certainly does for me, I really hope that I can achieve all six of these aims and I do think I am very capable of doing it. Anyhow, let's get on with the save setup!

The Save Setup:

Now that I have gotten through all that intro jibber-jabber; let's dive straight into how I set up this save. Starting off with how I loaded the leagues, obviously with us going low in France we won't need a mega database size especially since the majority of our signings will likely be regional-based for the first few seasons. That's not to say that I'm loading a small database at all, I rarely ever do so. Definitely jam-packed full of players but it will also mean that the save will load pretty fast which is good for me as I like to aim to play through about 1 or 2 seasons a week. 

A predominantly European database, but also a lot to talk about there. Obviously the six tier of France loaded in, that will certainly be a long long way to claim for little old Jeunesse Etoile de Biguglia! Hopefully my tactical knowhow (or lack there of) will be enough to do exactly that, it will take a while but I'm definitely up for the grind ahead. We have also got three tiers loaded in Germany, Italy, Belgium and Portugal for some depth. The top two tiers of English, Swiss and Dutch football and then finally four tiers in Spain. I'm certainly happy with it, I hope you are too but let me know if I have missed any obvious leagues; I just thought that this would be all we need for the time-being and if I ever need more: the add/remove leagues feature is there for me. 

Moving over to my save's advanced options, I chose pretty basic ones in honesty. Opted not to add key staff for realism purposes, needed to add players to playable teams in order to flesh out the database and make sure that there are no teams without enough players to be competitive. Decided to allow attribute masking for a bit more difficulty - hopefully it will increase my enjoyment for the save needing to scout players before signing them. And of course I decided to prevent in-game editor use, none of that cheating stuff in my books!

Ultimately, advanced options are pretty subjective and it doesn't matter too much what I end up picking. I just think that this will be best for the save. Hope it's okay with you! Overall, totalling the player count to approximately 63,000 players. Which is definitely good for me and my computer, which will run it at a two and a half star game speed. Generally happy with this and I am looking forward to diving into the save with this. (The 'custom' database message is referring to the force-loaded French players for the database, basically anyone French or playing in France will now definitively be in this save which is important in my opinion.) Let me know what you lot think though. 

But yeah, other than other basic league loading and minor setup stuff. That's pretty much it for save setup. This definitely sets the scene for a good save though, a lot of good leagues loaded, specific and good advanced options and a medium-sized database ready to go. I'm certainly happy with how it is. Fortunately, even if something were to go wrong and I made a mistake here; there's a lot of recovery features in FM like add/remove leagues which are nifty tricks for any of us to use. But of course, please do tell me if you think that I have missed something that is blatantly obvious and feel free to call me an idiot (you have my permission!) 

The Manager Stuff:

Moving onto the managerial side of the save. As you may of gotten from the headliner thumbnail, the emperor Darth Vader had to play some sort of part in the save. As well as Napoleon Bonaparte of course, thus creating the almighty 'Darth Bonaparte' to takeover the reigns at Jeunesse Etoile de Biguglia. I decided to face scan Vader which could potentially be the most cursed thing that I have ever seen in my entire life (which you will see in just a little bit of due course.) But yeah, I just thought it would be hilarious to have this guy running around trying to bring some the team of Jeunesse Etoile de Biguglia all the way to the top. Not having myself in the game doesn't really kill it for me although I know it can for some others. 

I've gone for zero coaching badges and Sunday league past playing experience for this save, just so that we're not too good for the club that we are at. Also I've never really needed high attributes from the off as they grow pretty fast and naturally almost immediately. It works, it really does. Disciplinarian management style focus because we have to! It's Napoleon and Darth Vader, if that doesn't scream disciplinarian to you then I can't think of anything that could. You can observe the attributes above as you wish, but I think they're pretty good. Just put them where I thought it would work with the narrative and where it will benefit the save from the off. 

But yeah, other than that - the save can commence! It's time to build our Corsican empire here at Jeunesse Etoile de Biguglia with Darth Bonaparte! As you can see, the face scan is as cursed as I said! We're starting off with a month-to-month deal because we are still just an amateur club for the moment. Suck it Masias! Darth Bonaparte is in town and he wants to go all the way to the top! It's time!

I'm hyped and raring to go!

Final Notes and Conclusion:

With all that setup and chat out of the way, I think it's time to call today's post a day. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read my blog post. It has been an absolute pleasure writing this and getting this save all organised and ready to go! And I'm very excited to stick my teeth into this save, ready for a long and arduous journey through the French footballing pyramid! In the next post; I will take you through who Jeunesse Etoile de Biguglia are, our opening transfer window and our very first friendlies! So look out for it. And if you're interested in this save, feel free to drop a follow on the topic or on my twitter linked down below. I'll catch you very soon. Au Revoir!

FM-AP Twitter: https://twitter.com/FM_AP_

FM-AP Server Discord: https://discord.gg/jyHJN8qm6E

 

Edited January 30, 2022 by FM-AP

[rmcf2017]

will be following this for sure, good luck