Guide for creating a Bilbao-like regional transfer policy

[bold013hades]

Here is a guide for how to create a club with a transfer restriction for a specific region of a larger country, like how Bilbao can only sign players from the Basque country in Spain/France. I see this question asked all the time, so I decided to share a guide I wrote up for someone else on reddit. I haven't seen a guide for region specific restrictions on here, but apologies if this has been covered before on this forum. Also, sorry in advance if this is too long and explains some obvious things. I wrote it for someone with no experience with the editor, so it might be a little too detailed. 

Step 1 (two options): You need to create a nation for your local region. Nearly every hardcoded transfer policy relates to your based nation. There are not any I am aware of that are tied to local region. To create a new nation, you need to change the continent from an extinct nation in the game to Europe (or any other continent). This is not something you can do in the default editor, so you will need to follow this guide from Unknown Hacker (scroll down until you see it). I suggest activating Ireland (Pre-1922) if you choose to go this route (East Germany, West Germany, Commonwealth of Soviet States, Czechoslovakia, and most other extinct nations will work too. Do not use Great Britain). You can then edit Ireland (Pre-1922) however you want. Do not click the box under the information tab to make your new nation a Worldwide Governing Body Full Member unless you want them to play in the World Cup. If you want that, I suggest going with the alternative option just below this.

Alternatively, you could try to use this custom nation database someone has already created. I have not tested it, but it purports to replace Kazakhstan in World Cup Qualifying with Ireland (Pre-1922), replace Kazakhstan in UEFA Nations League with Ireland (Pre-1922), and move Kazkhstan to Asia. With this database, you can edit Ireland (Pre-1922) just like with the previous option. I haven't tested it, but others seem to think it works and the creator says they've tested it out to 2050 without issues.

Step 2: Reactivate an extinct club with a hardcoded transfer policy. I suggest Bermuda Hogges, but you can do some googling and find others or see my spreadsheet here for a list of some others. You can edit this club however you like, but you need to make sure the Nation and Continental Cup Nation are set to the nation of the league the club will be in. Then set the based nation to your new nation. This is important because your based nation determines the hardcoded transfer policy.

Step 3: Use the pre-game editor to find the local regions you want to make up your new nation (e.g., if you want to make New York and New Jersey a new country, select the local regions of New York and New Jersey). You will see the local regions' nations are set to the nation they are currently in. Do not change this, but look at the cities within each region. Select all the cities and change their nation to your new nation. This should make it so all your regens are dual nationals with your new nation and the old nation, like how all Basque players are French/Spanish dual nationals. I am not sure if it works 100% of the time, but it seems to be pretty reliable from tests I've run.

Step 4: You need to change the "based nation" of all clubs in your local regions to your new nation. This step is necessary so you have a wide enough pool of players to buy. All players will need to be dual nationals of your based nation and leauge nation if you want to sign them (I don't know why this is the case. If anyone knows how to fix this, please let me know).

Step 5: Use the people tab and search for all people born in the local regions of your new nation. Add your new nation as a second nationality for all of them so you have some players to sign who aren't regens at the beginning of your save.

[RazorITA]

I want to report an important issue about this guide: when there is the youth recruitment, not everyone will have dual citizenship with your country, so you won't be able to take anyone from your youth income..

[RazorITA]

News: on the information panel, it says that players don't take citizenship because "They don't see any benefits"

[themodelcitizen]

3 hours ago, RazorITA said:

News: on the information panel, it says that players don't take citizenship because "They don't see any benefits"

for a Hogges-ID team with the hard-coded transfer policy too?

[RazorITA]

19 hours ago, themodelcitizen said:

for a Hogges-ID team with the hard-coded transfer policy too?

Yes, I actually used the Bermuda team. But maybe it's because I set 2 years to gain citizenship, and Basque nation has 0.

I will do further testing and I will update here, I hope changing that value will resolve the issue 

[bold013hades]

On 01/01/2024 at 17:27, RazorITA said:

Yes, I actually used the Bermuda team. But maybe it's because I set 2 years to gain citizenship, and Basque nation has 0.

I will do further testing and I will update here, I hope changing that value will resolve the issue 

Thank you for flagging this! It never came up in any of my tests, but I wouldn't be surprised if certain nations work differently. One thing I would check is if your nation allows for dual nationalities. If it doesn't, that could cause problems.