set league structure to change automatically year on year?

[daszer]

Hi there I know this may sound an odd request but I'm into my historical edits and was researching the WW2 structure in England, which chopped and changed both in 1939 and 1946 to regionals and back again.  Question is does anyone know if it is possible to do something like this?  I know SI factor in their own league changes for teams reductions etc to mirror the real world sometimes but not sure if it is possible to do it to this extent.  Any thoughts?

[Wolf_pd]

I have an idea for this that could help you, but I am not at home so will write it out later.

[daszer]

that's brilliant, thank you

 

[Wolf_pd]

Warning, long post

OK, this idea is based on building in basic rules and then converting to advanced rules. Main reason for this is that you can use the basic rules to set the basics of your rules (and that's always easier than building from scratch in advanced). But the basic rules do have some drawbacks as well, so you will need some trickery. Issue is that in basic rules you can't set when the competition is active. You do need the advanced rules for that.

So that's why I came up with this idea (for a competition setup I am thinking of). It involves creating new competitions and new clubs which are later on in the process deleted, but that has a reason and the reason why I would work like that is obvious later on. Also, I do have a slightly different thought process from time to time as you might notice

Anyway, you start with creating the league set up in the Division Rules for year 1 (I take 1980 as base year for my example). You add the existing (real) teams to this competition setup. That's done easy and quickly. Verify and check that your rules are valid.
Next up is year 2 which in my example changes the league with removing three teams. You create league 2 as a new competition. Call it Leagusetup 1981 for easy reference. Create say 8 teams (more is overdoing it to be honest) and call them Team 1981-1, Team 1981-2, etc). Add the teams to competition Leaguesetup 1981. Add this competition to your Division Rules. It might be easier to set this competition to level 2 btw. Verify and check that your rules are valid.
Next up is year 3 which in my example changes the league into 2 regional divisions. Create league 3 as a new competition, in this case you will actually need 3 new competitions. Leaguesetup 1982, Leaguesetup 1982 North, Leaguesetup 1982 South. Create again about 8 teams and add them to the North and South Division. Set this competition to level 3 and after that add it to the Division Rules. Verify and check that your rules are valid.
I could go on for a few years but the basic idea is clear. After you have added the rules to the point you are fine with it, you have a set up in a hierarchical way which are not connected (set promotion and relegation to 0 everywhere).

Now you convert to Advanced Rules.

The point is now that you want the hierarchical setup change into a consecutive seasons. This can be done by setting the startdate and enddate (only where applicable) for each competition setup. Set the years that are appropriate.
Next up is some cleaning up. Because you have set the competitions consecutively, but they are using different competitions and that needs to be changed. Change the Leaguesetup 1981 and 1982 to the original competition. In case of a regional division you can keep the regional division though, but you will have to set the parent division to your original division.
This should mean that the competition now runs through the various version consecutively, but you are not ready yet (verifying might throw a few nasty errors here). One of the things to do is check the correct amount of teams per season (as you have set them at 4/8 to limit your work. Another one to check is whether the team numbers remains the same. If not, when a change takes place, change the previous in such a way to accomodate the changes.

When that's done, you should be able to verify. Just know that the advanced rules can be finicky and another error can pop up.

When everything is verified, you can delete your helper teams and competitions which you no longer need. Deleting those will mean you have to re-verify. So you might delete them beforehand.

If you think this is too much work, you can try building them in advanced rules from scratch, using copies of other divisions. I think in a way it is just as hard to build.
 

[Wolf_pd]

Btw, don't feel overwhelmed by it. The idea is interesting and there are many ways to do things, so my idea might work for you, but might give others ideas to do it and hopefully someone jumps in with a smart(er) idea.

[daszer]

wow that is some well thought solution, cheers.  I am off out now but will most definitely try that over the weekend and let you know how I go on!

[nasaiain]

You can get the league system you change as often as you like. But it can get very fiddly.

For a second version of my fictional nation I have a file to generate a realistic league history. It starts on 1921 (obviously 2021 in game) and runs for 100 years constantly changing the league structure from 1 tier of 10 teams all the way to 192 teams In 5 tiers after 70 years. 

I did get it working perfectly, apart from teams dominating for the entire 100 years but Unfortunately I have managed to screw up the dates and the 2021-22 season starts in 2001, so I'm working on fixing it.

This took a lot of time and hundreds of tests. The biggest issues I found were, keeping track of when you want teams to enter and how many in each division, I complicated this by shinking leagues at times. Also making sure everyone enters cups at the correct stage.

 

[daszer]

that's excellent that you got it to work did you need to go into advanced?

 

[nasaiain]

9 minutes ago, daszer said:

that's excellent that you got it to work did you need to go into advanced?

 

It has to be done in advanced to set up the years for each format.

I will uploaded the file with the broken dates later, it hopefully show how it works

[daszer]

that will be really helpful, thank you

[nasaiain]

File attached

Samsara 2.0.3.fmf

date issue partially resolved, so it will now run, just the transfere windows and squad resistration date make no sense

Important things to look for 

setting up when a version should run

Adding additional teams due to expansion

also if you want a league to start at a later date you need to include it but with no stages

Edited August 23, 2022 by nasaiain

[daszer]

that's excellent, it will take some studying behind exactly how to do it but I can see the steps there definitely, thanks for that