[FM23] Canadian Megapatch (w/ proper 2024 CCL format)

[EnigMattic1]

Does anyone know if this is being made for FM24? 

[stickpiano]

Does anyone know how to change the salary cap to be dynamic or have pre-programmed raises?  This was done on the FM23 Canadian Megapack, but I can't figure out how to do it on my own.

[Dallan]

On 16/11/2023 at 15:53, stickpiano said:

Does anyone know how to change the salary cap to be dynamic or have pre-programmed raises?  This was done on the FM23 Canadian Megapack, but I can't figure out how to do it on my own.

Short answer: You would need to use the Advanced Rules editor to create additional versions of the CPL rules in your editor file with the new salary caps (as far as I recall there's no way to make a salary cap dynamic like FFP, only static), then set the Start and End years of every rule set in your file appropriately to schedule what years the game will use which rules.

If you open the FM23 pack in the editor (it should open in the 24 editor, it just doesn't work with the 24 database) you can see how OP did it.

[EnigMattic1]

Haven't seen anything on here yet, but this file is being released for FM24. 

[themodelcitizen]

18 hours ago, EnigMattic1 said:

Haven't seen anything on here yet, but this file is being released for FM24. 

@SaintsCanada is doing great work in the FM24 thread if there's any desire to join forces. Which could allow @yellowsweatygorilla to skip the hard work getting competitions etc set up - including the insane L1O changes for 2024, which @magicmastermind124 helped, well, mastermind. YSG could go straight to his usual great work with player editing, special knowledge of rules, etc

[EnigMattic1]

5 hours ago, themodelcitizen said:

@SaintsCanada is doing great work in the FM24 thread if there's any desire to join forces. Which could allow @yellowsweatygorilla to skip the hard work getting competitions etc set up - including the insane L1O changes for 2024, which @magicmastermind124 helped, well, mastermind. YSG could go straight to his usual great work with player editing, special knowledge of rules, etc

I think there will be a lot of changes within the leagues for a while yet, given that they are still tinkering with the structure. League 1 Alberta is due to start soon (I think), and there is a League 1 Maritimes and League 1 Prairies still to come apparently. 

Because of the quality of this file, it is always the base for my expansion which usually goes down to High School level (in Manitoba anyway). 

[themodelcitizen]

The detail in the FM24 one is insane already tbf, they've got the new L1O Championship somehow accounted for in 2024. If we're talking 2025+ leagues and beyond they can always be added in a similar manner, but at the moment the lack of future leagues (with no detail) is not a knock on its quality at all. I think lots of players prefer a realistic 2023 over the modmaker making up future teams and formats based on their best guess anyway, but that's always fun too. Anyway, just trying to reduce some unnecessary duplication and get the best Canadian LLM experience possible but I definitely understand the lure of keeping everything in-house!

[yellowsweatygorilla]

Yep, I am working on it for the new one! I did have a stop gap approach where in 2024 the L1O splits based on IRL table, but if @SaintsCanada managed to do the split based on in game results, it'd be far superior to what I had on offer

[yellowsweatygorilla]

Also, nice to know people still look forward/use my file. Some extra motivation for me to work on this, given I was losing a bit of interest as I am juggle a lot more work with my day job at the moment!

[yellowsweatygorilla]

In terms of where it's at right now. It seems like I've got all the rules working. I have also updated journalists and fixed their facepack. So, it's just a few final touches .. should be ready by the end of the week? The only thing is I don't have much time for testing, so will have to rely on folks here to let me know about bugs and format issues.

[kandersson]

6 minutes ago, yellowsweatygorilla said:

Also, nice to know people still look forward/use my file. Some extra motivation for me to work on this, given I was losing a bit of interest as I am juggle a lot more work with my day job at the moment!

I'm also looking forward to this as I've been enjoying the Canadian Megapatch for years now though I didn't want to press you with requests! Joining forces with TMC, Saintscanada and magimastermind would make for a true canadian all-star team 

[SaintsCanada]

3 hours ago, yellowsweatygorilla said:

Yep, I am working on it for the new one! I did have a stop gap approach where in 2024 the L1O splits based on IRL table, but if @SaintsCanada managed to do the split based on in game results, it'd be far superior to what I had on offer

@magicmastermind124 got that working. He beat @themodelcitizen to it by a couple of hours I think! If I'm not mistaken, the version in the file works whether you start in 2023 (combines in-game results to real-life 2022), OR if you start in 2024 (uses real-life2024 teams). It works like... well, magic.

Edited November 28, 2023 by SaintsCanada

[SaintsCanada]

3 hours ago, yellowsweatygorilla said:

In terms of where it's at right now. It seems like I've got all the rules working. I have also updated journalists and fixed their facepack. So, it's just a few final touches .. should be ready by the end of the week? The only thing is I don't have much time for testing, so will have to rely on folks here to let me know about bugs and format issues.

Amazing! If you feel like copying anything in our file to make life easier, please feel free. We all look forward to the CMP. I was merely trying to tide myself over (or in case you decided not to make one this year).

[themodelcitizen]

I have a CanChamp fix as well, feel free to link to the thread (default one is a mess). Works best as a separate continental file. If I can make one suggestion it's follow Saints' approach to TFC academy, it's kept compatibility with any US file (no MLS Next glitch like last year) and they now get to play in both structures 

Edited November 28, 2023 by themodelcitizen

[yellowsweatygorilla]

 

5 hours ago, SaintsCanada said:

@magicmastermind124 got that working. He beat @themodelcitizen to it by a couple of hours I think! If I'm not mistaken, the version in the file works whether you start in 2023 (combines in-game results to real-life 2022), OR if you start in 2024 (uses real-life2024 teams). It works like... well, magic.

That's amazing. I think for the good of the community we should figure out a way to coordinate merging our files together, since I am sure there's a lot of stuff your file does better than mine.

[yellowsweatygorilla]

5 hours ago, themodelcitizen said:

I have a CanChamp fix as well, feel free to link to the thread (default one is a mess). Works best as a separate continental file. If I can make one suggestion it's follow Saints' approach to TFC academy, it's kept compatibility with any US file (no MLS Next glitch like last year) and they now get to play in both structures 

Was there any issue with how my file handle CanChamp, I haven't double checked the format.

Re: TFC II, how'd @SaintsCanada manage to keep it in the American pyramid without TFC II adopting American AI and signing only Americans?

[SaintsCanada]

12 minutes ago, yellowsweatygorilla said:

 

That's amazing. I think for the good of the community we should figure out a way to coordinate merging our files together, since I am sure there's a lot of stuff your file does better than mine.

I think our project is basically complete now. You can literally take anything or everything you want to use and change it as you see fit.

[SaintsCanada]

12 minutes ago, yellowsweatygorilla said:

Was there any issue with how my file handle CanChamp, I haven't double checked the format.

Re: TFC II, how'd @SaintsCanada manage to keep it in the American pyramid without TFC II adopting American AI and signing only Americans?

Toronto FC II and Toronto FC Academy are untouched in the Canada file except that TFCA was given a secondary division (League1 Ontario U19 Reserves Fall East Division), and selected to that competition. If you play the Canada file and USA expansion file, they successfully play in both structures.

I have not looked at Toronto FC II's youth intakes, but I don't see why the changes I made would affect that either way.

[yellowsweatygorilla]

2 minutes ago, SaintsCanada said:

Toronto FC II and Toronto FC Academy are untouched in the Canada file except that TFCA was given a secondary division (League1 Ontario U19 Reserves Fall East Division), and selected to that competition. If you play the Canada file and USA expansion file, they successfully play in both structures.

I have not looked at Toronto FC II's youth intakes, but I don't see why the changes I made would affect that either way.

So in the vanilla version, TFC II operates on American AI logic so replaces all its players with Americans, and because the youth development model for MLS in FM is broken, no youth go from academy to MLSNP teams. My stopgap measure is to put the two Canadian MLSNP team in a Canadian division, that solves the AI problem but obviously breaks things if combined with an American file.

[themodelcitizen]

1 hour ago, yellowsweatygorilla said:

So in the vanilla version, TFC II operates on American AI logic so replaces all its players with Americans, and because the youth development model for MLS in FM is broken, no youth go from academy to MLSNP teams. My stopgap measure is to put the two Canadian MLSNP team in a Canadian division, that solves the AI problem but obviously breaks things if combined with an American file.

For what it's worth, I'm looking at TFCII's transfers in August 2023 in a test save with my US file and Saints' Canada file, and they've only signed Matthew Catavolo, Lazar Stefanovic (from TFCA), Baj Maan, and Ifeoluwa Adenuga. This is probably helped by having CanPL (1 signing) and L1O (2 signings) active.

So it sounds like it's fixed, or what's the issue? Do you put them in a phantom division?

But yeah, MLS' affiliations have always been wonky, as the original coding was for the draft etc and they've never adjusted it since MLS started academies. I might be able to do something with affiliations so MLSNP teams can at least use the academy guys.

I worry about breaking other intended aspects of the hard-coded academy pipeline, don't teams get homegrown rights for their academy products still? So you go from from TFC Academy getting the intended batch of youngsters (likely drawn from a hard-coded range of CA, rep, etc) to whatever variables affect a Canadian newgen batch

EDIT: and no I didn't see that you did anything wrong with the CanChamp, just the default version still has the years-old two-legged format and appears to have two L1O teams. Not sure why, but it makes sense they gave up, because trying to adjust the teams list is a disaster as it doesn't seem to recognize certain teams in the editor (but does in-game). My version fixes this and can be used alongside any combination of US and Canada files

Edited November 29, 2023 by themodelcitizen

[yellowsweatygorilla]

4 hours ago, themodelcitizen said:

For what it's worth, I'm looking at TFCII's transfers in August 2023 in a test save with my US file and Saints' Canada file, and they've only signed Matthew Catavolo, Lazar Stefanovic (from TFCA), Baj Maan, and Ifeoluwa Adenuga. This is probably helped by having CanPL (1 signing) and L1O (2 signings) active.

So it sounds like it's fixed, or what's the issue? Do you put them in a phantom division?

But yeah, MLS' affiliations have always been wonky, as the original coding was for the draft etc and they've never adjusted it since MLS started academies. I might be able to do something with affiliations so MLSNP teams can at least use the academy guys.

I worry about breaking other intended aspects of the hard-coded academy pipeline, don't teams get homegrown rights for their academy products still? So you go from from TFC Academy getting the intended batch of youngsters (likely drawn from a hard-coded range of CA, rep, etc) to whatever variables affect a Canadian newgen batch

EDIT: and no I didn't see that you did anything wrong with the CanChamp, just the default version still has the years-old two-legged format and appears to have two L1O teams. Not sure why, but it makes sense they gave up, because trying to adjust the teams list is a disaster as it doesn't seem to recognize certain teams in the editor (but does in-game). My version fixes this and can be used alongside any combination of US and Canada files

I don't see why it'd break the hardcoded academy pipeline seeing as it's broken to start off with. At best, players going directly from academy to first team... so even if MLSNP gets messed up, either way those players don't go through there, and retain their HG status. But yes, I put them in a phantom division and when that happens they sign 90% Canadians like IRL.

Problem still there using Saint's file. This is in 2026:

[themodelcitizen]

That's not good. FWIW I just simmed ahead to 2027 using both files and weirdly they were making almost no transfers, just keeping a core of players around and presumably being outbid for most American players by all the other active clubs.

We can adjust the pipeline with affiliations (giving TFC II the ability to loan players up), which they actually do, although probably not a full solution. Even if they're not active in Canada I get the desire to have them full of local players.

I'll try and brainstorm a more practical suggestion anyway, there's gotta be a better solution than changing clubs' division from a neighbouring nation and nuking compatibility, especially with Canada/US being so close (plus Thunder Bay and FC Manitoba getting competitive games) although I can't think of anything off the top of my head (chairmen/club objectives worth a test)

So you put them in a hidden division that doesn't generate any stages/fixtures? I wonder if I can still get them by making MLSNP into a reserve division

Also my mistake, I was thinking of TFCA and MLS Next (not Pro) when I was worried about the hard-coded youth/homegrown stuff, I realize the first team's relationship to the academy is unaffected

Edited November 29, 2023 by themodelcitizen

[EnigMattic1]

There 'could' be a way around the academy players predominantly Canadian. I did something similar with Winnipeg where I basically split Winnipeg into created regions that were physically in Canada, but geographically in another country. The result was dual national players, but it did help. 

[SaintsCanada]

Do Cardiff, Swansea, Wrexham, etc. generate mainly Welsh new-gens? If so, why?

Or does TFC II not create any new-gens because of the existence of TFCA?

[EnigMattic1]

5 minutes ago, SaintsCanada said:

Do Cardiff, Swansea, Wrexham, etc. generate mainly Welsh new-gens? If so, why?

Or does TFC II not create any new-gens because of the existence of TFCA?

Cardiff, Swansea and Wrexham are probably hardcoded. Why they wouldn't do the same for Toronto is beyond me. It may be worth having a look at how the details are set up in the editor.

Option 3 would be to recreate the problem team from scratch, make the existing one extinct and see if that makes any difference. 

Edited November 29, 2023 by EnigMattic1

[themodelcitizen]

US-based teams like TFC 2 don't get newgens at all IIRC? I think American newgens are generated at academy clubs, then transferred to a USL2 team after a year or two so they can be drafted. I think TFC II would have signed all those guys in your screenshot through normal transfers.

So I think it might be transfer policy being based on nation (probably also hard-coded for Welsh teams) rather than newgen issued. I changed their "continental cup nation" to Canada and running a test now.

Region/city changing is interesting but ultimately we want them to have the same as the other local clubs and cities around them so they identify local lads as targets

We can restrict the amount of Americans they can sign and play with transfer and roster rules too, is there any IRL limit on that?

Edited November 29, 2023 by themodelcitizen

[yellowsweatygorilla]

7 hours ago, EnigMattic1 said:

There 'could' be a way around the academy players predominantly Canadian. I did something similar with Winnipeg where I basically split Winnipeg into created regions that were physically in Canada, but geographically in another country. The result was dual national players, but it did help. 

now that's thinking outside of the box. I wonder if it's possible to put TFC II and WFC II into this mixed region, but set it as no youth intake so avoiding the dual nats 

.... but ah I guess it also means any player signed will eventually gain American citizenship and also doesn't guarantee that AI signs predominantly Canadians

[yellowsweatygorilla]

1 hour ago, SaintsCanada said:

Do Cardiff, Swansea, Wrexham, etc. generate mainly Welsh new-gens? If so, why?

Or does TFC II not create any new-gens because of the existence of TFCA?

The issue isn't newgens, the issue is the players that the AI manager signs. Newgens will still reflect the country the club is based in.

And it really destroys the immersion since the game doesn't really consider based nation as domestic (outside of the rules). What I mean is I've managed Cardiff before and signed predominantly Welsh players, but then I keep getting news entries saying I favour international players.

 

The better example might be atletic bilbao only signing Basque players.. but ya that's hard coded. So many have tried to replicate it unsuccessfully. I've tried everything, from transfer preferences  to club objectives. The only thing that works is moving a club back to a Canadian division. I mean there's also the very imperfect solution of making MLS, MLSNP a 'continental competition' with the clubs registered to a dummy division of their respective nations, but that messes with other things.

[yellowsweatygorilla]

10 minutes ago, themodelcitizen said:

 

We can restrict the amount of Americans they can sign and play with transfer and roster rules too, is there any IRL limit on that?

There is no IRL limit. When you say restrict, you mean through league rules?

I almost always change my MLS rules to require at least 22 Canadians in the roster. Unfortunately, AI is terrible at following that, so what happens is they sign many many Americans that just get left unregistered and they make do with a tiny 18 man squad.

[themodelcitizen]

You can replicate Athletic Bilbao to an extent with the extinct Bermuda Hogges, I made a Catalan-only club last year (reflected their IRL transfer policy). I've thought about using them to create a Quebecois-only team in CanPL. Not related I know but it was mentioned and is a testament to some of the weird editor quirks worth exploring.

Maybe there are two TFC IIs, with a B relationship or something, and one in each country? Just thinking out loud. And yeah, AI is terrible at roster rules, but maybe I can find a transfer rule to limit their ability to sign Americans. I'll test some more after work

[themodelcitizen]

With NISA, USL1 etc enabled they don't sign anyone because there's too much competition, but that's not much better either

[yellowsweatygorilla]

10 minutes ago, themodelcitizen said:

You can replicate Athletic Bilbao to an extent with the extinct Bermuda Hogges, I made a Catalan-only club last year (reflected their IRL transfer policy). I've thought about using them to create a Quebecois-only team in CanPL. Not related I know but it was mentioned and is a testament to some of the weird editor quirks worth exploring.

Maybe there are two TFC IIs, with a B relationship or something, and one in each country? Just thinking out loud. And yeah, AI is terrible at roster rules, but maybe I can find a transfer rule to limit their ability to sign Americans. I'll test some more after work

oh man, if there was a way to institute a transfer and signing ban for American players, it'd be a revelation for my fantasy dbs

[themodelcitizen]

Bermuda can only sign players who have nationality of both nation and based nation, so perfect for Quebec (whose newgens would by default be dual nationals). I don't think there's a specific transfer rule that can be assigned to one country but I'll dig deep

Also I think that with US lower leagues enabled the Canadian teams might sign far less Yanks because there's so many jobs down there now 

Edited November 29, 2023 by themodelcitizen

[EnigMattic1]

37 minutes ago, yellowsweatygorilla said:

now that's thinking outside of the box. I wonder if it's possible to put TFC II and WFC II into this mixed region, but set it as no youth intake so avoiding the dual nats 

.... but ah I guess it also means any player signed will eventually gain American citizenship and also doesn't guarantee that AI signs predominantly Canadians

Creating the regions is easy enough, as I mentioned, I made it so that Winnipeg was split into regions and said regions were done to accommodate nationalities in the most recent census. This increased the number of players with a secondary nationality such as Irish, Scottish, German etc. 

The dominant nationality was, if I remember correctly, Canadian. I will fire up the editor and take a look at what I did and let you know. 

[EnigMattic1]

16 minutes ago, themodelcitizen said:

Bermuda can only sign players who have nationality of both nation and based nation, so perfect for Quebec (whose newgens would by default be dual nationals). I don't think there's a specific transfer rule that can be assigned to one country but I'll dig deep

Also I think that with US lower leagues enabled the Canadian teams might sign far less Yanks because there's so many jobs down there now 

And, unfortunately, there is only Bermuda Hogges that this can be done with. 

[themodelcitizen]

5 minutes ago, EnigMattic1 said:

And, unfortunately, there is only Bermuda Hogges that this can be done with. 

There are a bunch of hard-coded clubs with certain characteristics, so I'm guessing there are other extinct ones no one's found out about yet (including people still working at SI). One thing I've learned about the editor... Those types of definitive statements are rarely accurate! 

[themodelcitizen]

8 minutes ago, EnigMattic1 said:

Creating the regions is easy enough, as I mentioned, I made it so that Winnipeg was split into regions and said regions were done to accommodate nationalities in the most recent census. This increased the number of players with a secondary nationality such as Irish, Scottish, German etc. 

The dominant nationality was, if I remember correctly, Canadian. I will fire up the editor and take a look at what I did and let you know. 

The only problem with multiple Winnipegs is the game doesn't know you're playing a derby against another Winnipeg team, won't always get the news items about local players understanding rivalries better, etc. Although it's a fine workaround. If you were doing multiple regions (Manitoba) it might just affect scouting (they won't know these guys are from their 'region') but maybe you want the Serb club (or whoever) not be interested in anyone else

But yeah I think here it's the club's "nation" affecting transfer preferences. Gotta love SI releasing a game where Vancouver and TO 's 'B' teams are glitched right out of the box

[yellowsweatygorilla]

12 minutes ago, EnigMattic1 said:

Creating the regions is easy enough, as I mentioned, I made it so that Winnipeg was split into regions and said regions were done to accommodate nationalities in the most recent census. This increased the number of players with a secondary nationality such as Irish, Scottish, German etc. 

The dominant nationality was, if I remember correctly, Canadian. I will fire up the editor and take a look at what I did and let you know. 

You know, we actually have those settings in the backend of the vanilla game, except provincially. So, we have Manitoba matching the real proportions.

[themodelcitizen]

32 minutes ago, yellowsweatygorilla said:

oh man, if there was a way to institute a transfer and signing ban for American players, it'd be a revelation for my fantasy dbs

Sorry one more spam post. You should be able to do a nationwide ban with Canada (the nation itself, not the rules) by changing their transfer preferences. Obviously doesn't help much here as I don't think we can go division by division 

[yellowsweatygorilla]

2 minutes ago, themodelcitizen said:

 

But yeah I think here it's the club's "nation" affecting transfer preferences. Gotta love SI releasing a game where Vancouver and TO 's 'B' teams are glitched right out of the box

I think I've reported this every year for the last 5-6.

[yellowsweatygorilla]

1 hour ago, themodelcitizen said:

Sorry one more spam post. You should be able to do a nationwide ban with Canada (the nation itself, not the rules) by changing their transfer preferences. Obviously doesn't help much here as I don't think we can go division by division 

If you just mean regional/national transfer preferences and not a ban, no it doesn't work unfortunately. I've tried it ... at least in previous iterations of the game. Maybe I'll try it again.


Also, I don't think those transfer preferences affect clubs that are only based in a nation but registered elsewhere.

 

Update: Yea still doesn't work putting US player transfers at limited

Edited November 29, 2023 by yellowsweatygorilla

[EnigMattic1]

12 minutes ago, themodelcitizen said:

The only problem with multiple Winnipegs is the game doesn't know you're playing a derby against another Winnipeg team, won't always get the news items about local players understanding rivalries better, etc. Although it's a fine workaround. If you were doing multiple regions (Manitoba) it might just affect scouting (they won't know these guys are from their 'region') but maybe you want the Serb club (or whoever) not be interested in anyone else

But yeah I think here it's the club's "nation" affecting transfer preferences. Gotta love SI releasing a game where Vancouver and TO 's 'B' teams are glitched right out of the box

It's not multiple Winnipeg's as such. As an example, there is a region based in Winnipeg that generates second nationalities of Irish, and a other that generates Scottish. The clubs are still based in Winnipeg. I'm going to have to fire up the editor and take a look as it's been a while since I've done it and it was predominantly for the MMSL and High School leagues. 

[themodelcitizen]

Actually does the "overall squad rule" of "max non-Canadian players in Canadian teams" work? Could set it to 2 or whatever each team's actual amount of Americans was last season.

Although even if we bar them from signing or registering Americans, it won't necessarily incentivize them to signing Canadians. But at that point it's just the stupid game AI that breaks North American saves after 3 or 4 seasons anyway.

[yellowsweatygorilla]

4 minutes ago, themodelcitizen said:

Actually does the "overall squad rule" of "max non-Canadian players in Canadian teams" work? Could set it to 2 or whatever each team's actual amount of Americans was last season.

Although even if we bar them from signing or registering Americans, it won't necessarily incentivize them to signing Canadians. But at that point it's just the stupid game AI that breaks North American saves after 3 or 4 seasons anyway.

No it doesn't work. That's my go to rule .. but what happens as I said is that teams still sign like 20 americans but fail to register them, so then the squad sizes are like 18.

If it prevented signing Americans, I can at least live with AI filling out the roster with their own newgens, but that doesn't work either because the youth pathway for MLS is completely broken in FM.

Edited November 29, 2023 by yellowsweatygorilla

[themodelcitizen]

Haha, yeah it (kind of) worked at one point, then MLS introduced academies and that's too much work for the devs so they kept it the way it is. MLS is way down the list, they just want a licensed league that looks like it works but neglect stuff like an accurate fixture plan, a correct CanChamp format (outdated by a few years now) with the correct teams, etc (not to mention ignoring your bug reports every year).

TFC II are effectively prevented from signing Americans with the US lower leagues active, but yeah, no newgens (as intended). I wonder if we give them youth links to London and Windsor (and other local teams like Sigma they have good relationships with) and if they'll take a cut of their newgens instead (or at least have first shot at signing them and be more likely to). I'm gonna run some tests with Saints' file only

[yellowsweatygorilla]

4 minutes ago, themodelcitizen said:

Haha, yeah it (kind of) worked at one point, then MLS introduced academies and that's too much work for the devs so they kept it the way it is. MLS is way down the list, they just want a licensed league that looks like it works but neglect stuff like an accurate fixture plan, a correct CanChamp format (outdated by a few years now) with the correct teams, etc (not to mention ignoring your bug reports every year).

TFC II are effectively prevented from signing Americans with the US lower leagues active, but yeah, no newgens (as intended). I wonder if we give them youth links to London and Windsor (and other local teams like Sigma they have good relationships with) and if they'll take a cut of their newgens instead (or at least have first shot at signing them and be more likely to). I'm gonna run some tests with Saints' file only

But with US lower leagues active are other MLSNP teams also not signing players?

[themodelcitizen]

Probably, I'm trying to play with affiliations to make them utilize loans more (as they should), but as you know the AI MLS managers won't be savvy enough to utilize the frequent loans that most teams do IRL (often sending young guys up and down multiple times per season). AI squad management in US (if not most custom) lower leagues is basically broken anyway, especially with complex roster rules, so my goal is usually to win a couple of titles and get out of there as quick as possible.

Could drop NISA but it's only 9 teams so wouldn't help much. Still trying to think of a way to marry TFC II actually having competitive games and signing Canadians, might test it again as a reserve league with TFCII's nation changed

[yellowsweatygorilla]

3 minutes ago, themodelcitizen said:

Probably, I'm trying to play with affiliations to make them utilize loans more (as they should), but as you know the AI MLS managers won't be savvy enough to utilize the frequent loans that most teams do IRL (often sending young guys up and down multiple times per season). AI squad management in US (if not most custom) lower leagues is basically broken anyway, especially with complex roster rules, so my goal is usually to win a couple of titles and get out of there as quick as possible.

Could drop NISA but it's only 9 teams so wouldn't help much. Still trying to think of a way to marry TFC II actually having competitive games and signing Canadians, might test it again as a reserve league with TFCII's nation changed

Well, since this is technically 'reserves' and having the stats show up in the player history is less important. One way would be to make MLSNP a continental competition that draws the teams from a US dummy division and Canadian dummy division. 

[themodelcitizen]

Oh yeah, like CanChamp with the option enabled to appear in both nations. Maybe I should just include it in the same file.

These are 'B' teams but atm it's not a reserve division, so I think/hope the games still count for the competitive games that young players need for development. Plus it's nice to scout or even watch your B team (obviously I need to fix the transfer policy for this to be practical). I guess they don't play at Lamport anymore but in older versions I'd play as TFC and imagine myself wandering over to Lamport to catch a II game

[themodelcitizen]

On testing with only Saints' file and supporter objectives set to signing Canadians 10, and signing Americans -10, they're just not signing anyone however the senior teams are drafting Americans and sending them down.

Also realized my MLS Next Pro calls specific teams using their secondary division anyway for conference reasons, so as long as you don't touch secondary division it might actually work the way it is with your changes