[FM42] A brave new world - Historical divergence

[Wolf_pd]

Nation: Illinois Confederation
Offical long name: Illinois Confederation
Language(s): English
Capital: Peoria
National stadium: Soldier Field
Borders: West Oceti Sakowin, Texas, north Canada, south Acadiana, east Iroquois Confederacy, Florida

The Northwest Territory was formed from unorganized territory after the American Revolutionary War. From 1803 the territory, piece by piece, was slowly turned into states, until in 1858 all states were part of the United States. In the years before the American Civil War would break out, the main group of immigrants came from north, northwestern and central Europe. These people were all too familiar with war and when the American Civil War broke out, the European immigrants would join the Union army in massive numbers. The regiments from Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Michigan were most effectively used in cleaning resistance in Missouri and Arkansas, but in other areas the troops suffered greatly, including during the battle of Gettysburg. The Illinois regiments, being created in the state of President Abraham Lincoln, initially were very enthusiastic and conscription wasn't even needed in the state, but the assassination of President Lincoln brought this enthusiasm to a screeching halt. Luckily for the Union the Civil War was already coming to an end. Andrew Johnson, originally born in North Carolina and therefor in the eyes of some Unionist a Southerner, favored a quick restoration of the seceded states which would mean another war, now against the Spanish. This gave rise to the Not My President's riots in Chicago on Februari 20th, 1867.
Sensing indecision, revolts broke out in Texas, California and the northwest. This made Johnson even more eager to push through his war. While the western territories were relatively new to statehood, the south was considered an integral part of the United States. War weary Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Michigan spoke out against war and as Congress couldn't decide on what to do with these states who refused to go to war against Spain, war preparation to the south were halted. The inability of Andrew Johnson to keep the United States united and his threat of war against mostly Illinois lead to Ulysses S. Grant declaring secession in Illinois. To Grant's surprise Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa,  Missouri and Arkansas quickly followed and requested a union with Illinois in what was named the Illinois Confederation. Michigan would only follow in part with the Upper Peninsula joining up with Wisconsin while the Lower Peninsula remained a US state.
The Illinois Confederation posed a huge problem for the United States as it blocked the route to the west and south, essentially guaranteeing California, Cascadia and Texas unopposed independence. It also gave the strange situation that while the Illinois Confedration declared independence, both east and west of the Confederation lay United States lands. West of the Confederation the Sioux Wars were taking place. The Sioux declared they would not attack Confederation territory if the Illiniwek would block the United States from sending troops westwards. The Illinois Confederation seeing the threat of being boxed in by the United States agreed. Ultimately the United States troops were defeated in the west and more disarray in the United States would mean the Confederation would no longer border the United States.

The Illinois Football Competition is one of the stronger North American national competitions. As can be expected Chicago is the focal point of the IFL with the largest metro area. Football crazy Missouri adds teams from Kansas City and St Louis. Minneapolis and St Paul represent the Minnesotan teams. Milwaukee is the sole provider of Wisconsin teams. Arkansas, Iowa and Michigan all provide one team to the 18 team setup. The Confederation has some recent success in the World Cup qualifiers, but has not yet been able to secure World Cup qualification. At the same time, they have been to qualify for the Copa America regularly in recent years.

Next up the Iroquois Confederacy

[Wolf_pd]

Nation: Iroquois Confederacy
Offical long name: Iroquois Confederacy
Language(s): English and several Iroquois languages
Capital: Cuyahoga
National stadium: Longhouse Stadium
Borders: West Illinois Confederation, north Canada, south Florida, east United States

Just like the history of the Illinois Confederation we start in the Northwest Territory. Before the 1800s the Native Americans in the Northwest Territory united in the Northwestern Indian Confederacy. This loose confederacy was formed in an attempt to resist the expansion of the United States and the encroachment of American settlers. The Iroquois were supporters from afar in this period. The Confederacy would be defeated by the Unites States in the Northwest Indian War. Where President Thomas Jefferson hoped to incorporate Native Americans through assimilation and intermarriage, he also encouraged land removals and debts as a way to humble them. In the meantime, the British aimed to set up an Indian nation in the Ohio-Wisconsin area to block further American expansion. This aligned their goals with those of the Tenskwatawa tradionalist movement that rejected United States practices. Tenskwatawa was the younger brother of Tecumseh, the Shawnee leader in the Indiana Territory. When the Indiana Territory governor managed to play out the various tribes against each other and secure the Treaty of Fort Wayne, Tecumseh was outraged. He started gathering support and urging warriors to join the resistance. Tecumseh was in the south for a period of time and this proved an almost fatal blunder. Governor (and later president) Harrison managed to infuriate Tenskwatawa, seeing him as the weaker and more volatile of the brothers and was able to the destroy the main gathering point in Prophetstown. This ended Tecumseh's Rebellion prematurely, but Tecumseh would find allies in the British during the 1812 War. When Tecumseh was killed in the Battle of the Thames, it ended Native American resistance in this region. Many refugees from defeated tribes went over the border to Canada.
This started a relative peaceful period in the region, but that didn't mean Native American life improved. On the contrary, the influx of settlers and landgrabs by local and state government were the order of the day. The outbreak of the American Civil War brought a dillema. While the tribes did not support the Union Army, at the same time they did not support the Confederate cause either. The Great Lakes tribes would look on from the sideline. In the meantime, the British did rekindle the idea of an Indian Nation in the area as they saw the instability as an option to protect their Southern border a bit more. When Illinois seceded and the United States didn't respond with violence, the Iroquois tribes started gathering warriors into the Great Lakes territory not yet part of the Illinois Confederation. Similarly to the Sioux the Iroquois agreed with the Illinois Confederation to honour their territorial integrity if the Illinois Confederation would not lay claim on Iroquois territory. Seeing the advantage of an extra buffer state between the Illinois Confederation and the United States, the came to an agreement quickly. The Illinois Confederation would also support the Iroquois with weapons and supplies, which made fighting the depleted and scattered US troops much easier. In the end the United States could do nothing else than accept the independe of the Iroquois Confederacy.

The Iroquois Confederacy is mostly known for being a top level nation in Lacrosse. Their football results are less world beating. They still are able for shock results as they make use of their Lacrosse skills on the football field. Quick movement, physical play and trick shots are part of the Iroquois playbook.
Since most older players move to either the United States or the Illinois Confederation, the Iroquois National Football League is mostly composed of teams with young rosters. The lack of experience shows in international football where the Iroquois have not been high flyers.

Note to the reader: I use the word Indian when it is used in literature with regard to territories and wars.

Next up the United States (or what is left of it...)

[Wolf_pd]

Nation: United States
Offical long name: United States of America
Language(s): English
Capital: Washington (DC)
National stadium: Meadowlands Stadium
Borders: West Iroquois Confederacy, north Canada and Quebec, south Florida, east Atlantic Ocean

At the turn of the 19th century the United States wasn't half the size it was at its largest extent, but was already 4 times larger than it is today. Settling new lands and organising territories was the order of the day in 1800. The United States would expand westwards until the American Civil War when it was at its largest territorywise. Seven southern states secededin 1861 after Abraham Lincoln was voted president, fearful that slavery would be abolished. Only a month after Lincoln was sworn in as president the American Civil War would break out. The Civil War would become the starting point of the breaking of the Union. In hindsight, it makes sense that a large nation with a diverse population would need a uniting factor to keep it together. With Lincoln assasinated just before the Civil War ended that factor was gone. After Florida and Acadiana already left during the Civil War, the Breaking of the Union started in earnest in 1865. Texas, California and Cascadia would declare independence in the far west. The Illinois Confederation and Iroquois Confederacy would follow suit and finally when the last US soldiers surrendered in the Great Plains the United States was organised in its current form. An attempt was made to recover the Florida territory together with Cuba and Puerto Rica, but the USA was beaten back by the Spanish easily.
After 1900 the United States normalised relations with the other nations on the Northern American continent. A good neighbour is always better than a faraway friend. The nations would join in fighting in the Second World War and after the war would work together in fields like physics and space technology. In 1969 the United States Space program was succesfull in getting a man on the moon. The first man on the moon was an American, with the second one being Iroquois, while the Saturn V rocket was launched from a Florida base with the control centre in Houston, Texas. A true joint effort.

The United Football Association would be the start of professional football in the United States. The UFA merged with the National Professional Football League after two seasons to create the North American Football League. The competition peaked in the 70s, mainly because aging European stars were imported. The early 1980s recession and player disputes put an end on the overexpanded league that regularly tried to poach teams from Canada, Quebec, Florida, the Iroquois Confederacy, Illionois Confederation and even tried to set up a Western division with teams from Texas and California! The few foreign franchises that took part in the NAFL were usually not popular in their homecountry and would mostly fold after one or two seasons.
Between 1985 and 1995 the United States did not have a football division and football was organised on a regional level. This meant the National Challenge Cup (now the US Open Cup) was the only route into continental club football. With the establishment of Major League Football US football took back its place near the top of the North American football pyramid.

Next up Oceti Sakowin and after that it is time for a map!

[Golden Gordon]

Looking forward to what the map looks like, though I have a general idea from your well constructed histories. I really do like these alternate histories scenarios where a few key events in history take a different turn.

I too have dabbled with the idea of a different looking North and Central America but it never got past the basic planning stage, let alone database editing, of which my skills are modest. Wonderful that you have found a way for indigenous nations to be formed, I couldn't figure out a possible way to make it plausibly happen, though it would have revolved around Britain winning the Revolutionary war, given France never threw their lot in with the Colonials, and therefore the westward expansion past the Appalachians by the US never occurs.

Part of my problem is procrastination and forever fiddling and changing things rather than settling on an outcome and running with that. Afterall there are so many possibilities.

As with your Iron Curtain work, another epic idea taking shape. I dips me lid to yer. 

 

[Wolf_pd]

Nation: Oceti Sakowin
Offical long name: Oceti Sakowin
Language(s): English, various Native American languages
Capital: Ȟeská Otȟúŋwahe
National stadium: Mile High Stadium
Borders: West Cascadia, California, north Canada, south Texas, east Illinois Confederation

For now this is the last nation description. Oceti Sakowin, Lakota for Seven Council Fires was originally the name for the Sioux nation where each fire was a people group inside the nation. These days, while the original meaning is still used, the seven can also point to the seven largest native American tribes that have made the midwest nation their home. As all native Americans, the trouble started when they came into contact with European settlers. By the time the United States was formed, 'manifest destiny' was the reason the United States considered the Native Americans lands US soil and that they only needed to go over and claim the land. Still, there were occassions where at least at the surfce the United States give the impression to accept traditional territorial claims. The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 was one of such occassions. US treaty commissioners and representatives of the Cheyenne, Sioux, Arapaho, Crow, Assiniboine, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nations agreed on the treaty where the United States would acknowledge that all the land covered by the treaty was Native American territory and would not claim any part of it. The Native Americans would guarantee safe passage for settlers on the Oregon Trail and allowed roads and forts to be built in their territories, in exchange for an annuity in the amount of fifty thousand dollars for fifty years.
As can be expected the treaty was broken almost immediately with settlers invading the treaty territory. The United States did nothing to stop the incursions while keeping a sharp eye on any native American respons. After all, they had agreed to guarantee safe passage for the settlers. As the influx of settlers and the pressure on scarce resources increased conflict between the tribes at first, no common cause could be decided on. All tribes fought their own wars against the settlers and the US militias defending them. However, the American Civil War would bring a change in fortune. Only settlers and scattered militia remained in the plains, while the military forces were moved eastwards. The Sioux would lead the way in harrassing settlers and militias. With the independence of the Illinois Confederacy the Native Americans were guaranteed that after the American Civil War ended no military reinforcements could be send into the Great Plains. This meant the Native Americans could fight a war of ambush and attrition. Finally being able to find a common ground with other tribes, the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes formed war parties. Despite the cooperation it tooks years before the Native Americans got the upper hand. The final nail for the US presence in the Great Plains was the Ghost Dance War.  The Paiute religious leader Wovoka had a vision in Wakan Tanka, (usually translated as Great Spirit) spoke to him and told him that the ghost of Native American ancestors would come back to live in peace with the remaining Native Americans for the rest of eternity, and that by practicing the ghost dances would hasten the arrival of these events. This vision was the galvanizing force to gather the tribes and deal the decisive blow. The United States withdrew any claims on the territory, agreed with the Native Americans that all settlers that wished so could stay in agreed territories and war reparations would be paid. Finally the seven biggest tribes divided the territory among themselves and peace and independence was there.

Oceti Sakowin entered football late as the nation was and still is scarcely populated. The national competition was a 'developing competition' in the eyes of FIFA untill only recent. With tribes settling down and not travelling around anymore, more teams have entered the pyramid and slowly but surely a serious club competition is being devised. This has its effect on the national team of course, with Oceti Sakowin regularly not taking part in qualifiers. In terms of international success there is still much to be desired.

Next up: Maps as all nations are done.
 

[Wolf_pd]

It is map time. This is the final version of the American continent.

I have started with building football history for Oceti Sakowin as I was already deep into their history and because it has to be build from the ground up, including culture and everything behind that. Maybe I will share first thoughts on that this weekend

[Jorgen]

Looks very good @Wolf_pd

[Wolf_pd]

Editwork in the meantime Is ongoing. I am working on setting all geographic data and changing nationalities. That last one is fun as you can already see some teams take shape in the Caribbean (looking at you Hayti!). The geographic data is hampered by something I sometimes don't understand in the database. Extinct teams for some nations do have cities, for some other nations they don't and finding information on them is usually pretty hard, so takes the most time. It is there where I will have to guess sometimes. Sometimes the team has a city name included in the name, while that turns out to be the complete team name and the city name is just a reference to the official team from another city. Erm.... yes....? So I am bound to add cities to a few teams that are not correct. Still, things are progressing in the little time I have at work currently.

The plan is to ramp up when FM24 arrives, but I am still in doubt whether that would be at 24.0 or 24.4 (which obviously means 5 months difference. Part of that is because of the errors I will have to fix whenever I convert to a new version. So I am either going to use the XX.0 versions all the way or the XX.4 version and it does make sense to use the XX.4 version as that is the most complete one. Still, for geographic data that should be minimal, unless SI overhauls the geographic data model when women's football would arrive in the game.

Also, if you are missing -s-ses in my posts, a piece of dust got stuck under the s-key. It is very annoying!

[Wolf_pd]

In the meantime I have been working out the continental cups. This is going to be a two tiered system.

Tier one is the Copa Libertadores where all teams have input. Tier two contains the secondary continental cups for North America, Central America and Caribbean and South America.

A super cup tournament is played where the winners of tier 1 and tier 2 play. The super cup qualifiers also qualify for next year's Copa Libertadores. Normally this would cause issues as I haven't worked out how to properly set up a cup that doesn't always have the same amount of teams, but with groups this is very easy too fix.

[grade]

On 10/06/2023 at 13:40, Wolf_pd said:

In the meantime I have been working out the continental cups. This is going to be a two tiered system.

Tier one is the Copa Libertadores where all teams have input. Tier two contains the secondary continental cups for North America, Central America and Caribbean and South America.

A super cup tournament is played where the winners of tier 1 and tier 2 play. The super cup qualifiers also qualify for next year's Copa Libertadores. Normally this would cause issues as I haven't worked out how to properly set up a cup that doesn't always have the same amount of teams, but with groups this is very easy too fix.

I love the idea of the 2 tier system, with the second tier focusing on different areas of the American continent 

Not sure if a super cup winner qualifies for next year's Copa Libertadores, is a good idea, because I'm more of by the merit system. If the club wishes to participate in main continent competitions prove it in the national league.

[Wolf_pd]

3 hours ago, grade said:

Not sure if a super cup winner qualifies for next year's Copa Libertadores, is a good idea, because I'm more of by the merit system. If the club wishes to participate in main continent competitions prove it in the national league.

Might have slightly been lost in translation, but the winners for the Copa Libertadores, Copa Sudamericana, Copa Norteamericana and Copa Centroamericana all qualify for the next Copa Libertadores, so it's the winning of the Copa Libertadores or the regional competition that qualifies them, not winning the Super Cup. Still, your point could apply there as well.

[grade]

2 hours ago, Wolf_pd said:

Might have slightly been lost in translation, but the winners for the Copa Libertadores, Copa Sudamericana, Copa Norteamericana and Copa Centroamericana all qualify for the next Copa Libertadores, so it's the winning of the Copa Libertadores or the regional competition that qualifies them, not winning the Super Cup. Still, your point could apply there as well.

Overall, I'm against having any sort of a winner of the previous year have access to the main cup or the next higher cup (like winning the Conference League gives you access to Europa League, for example). Why does West Ham deserve to have a spot in the Europa League since in the Premier League they finish 14?

Well, not really the thread to debate it. It just my opinion, but your leagues and cups, will surely be a must to play with.

[Wolf_pd]

I am also looking at an alternative version at the moment. So things can still changes. It is the Americas afterall, the season format isn't final until the season has ended

In the meantime I am puzzling away on European soil, but that's just hobby and setting some early boundaries. Might need some different mapping software for some nations  The Netherlands might look very different and not because it has area added from neighbouring countries!

[Jorgen]

@Wolf_pd For my own project (just creating a new world map for now) I changed and changed again, a lot. Interesting nations and cultures where added and removed again, before I was satisfied with the results. Took me weeks and hundreds of hours of reading and recoloring the map. But it was great fun! 😀

[Wolf_pd]

48 minutes ago, Jorgen said:

@Wolf_pd For my own project (just creating a new world map for now) I changed and changed again, a lot. Interesting nations and cultures where added and removed again, before I was satisfied with the results. Took me weeks and hundreds of hours of reading and recoloring the map. But it was great fun! 😀

Sounds very familiar   That was my pre-planning phase which must have started somewhere in 2017. Hope your pre-planning goes a bit quicker though!

On the Frisian map, I am considering what to do with the Ijsselmeer and surrounding area.

[Jorgen]

7 minutes ago, Wolf_pd said:

Sounds very familiar   That was my pre-planning phase which must have started somewhere in 2017. Hope your pre-planning goes a bit quicker though!

On the Frisian map, I am considering what to do with the Ijsselmeer and surrounding area.

At first I wanted to have exactly as many nations per continent as there are in FM atm. Thought that was more convenient for the continental cups. Caused all kinds of problems to find and create extra nations, or to delete ones I like. So in the end I had to make a choice: (1) keep it in line with FM; (2) Forget about the amount of nations FM has; or (3) Forget about FM completely for now. I am not totally sure what to do. I am not so good with the editor, but still would like this to be an FM project someday perhaps. So for now it is just a map of a world that only exists in my mind. Which is totally fine too.

As most of these gigantic projects die in the proces of making it, I hope yours will see the light of day

 

What about the IJsselmeer?

Edited June 22, 2023 by Jorgen

[Wolf_pd]

6 minutes ago, Jorgen said:

What about the IJsselmeer?

Well, what if it was completely reclaimed land, or instead was never reclaimed (so no Flevoland and Almere City)? That's what I am looking at now.

[Jorgen]

6 minutes ago, Wolf_pd said:

Well, what if it was completely reclaimed land, or instead was never reclaimed (so no Flevoland and Almere City)? That's what I am looking at now.

You could do something with the proposed but cancelled reclaiming of the Markermeer to Markerwaard; or look further back in history to the Almere time when it was land before the Zuiderzee flooded everything.
Or discard the entirety of Flevoland, or ust keep it as it is now, ofcourse. Are there already other nations/regions where you want to redraw borders and redraw geography?

[Wolf_pd]

On 22/06/2023 at 21:54, Jorgen said:

You could do something with the proposed but cancelled reclaiming of the Markermeer to Markerwaard; or look further back in history to the Almere time when it was land before the Zuiderzee flooded everything.
Or discard the entirety of Flevoland, or ust keep it as it is now, ofcourse. Are there already other nations/regions where you want to redraw borders and redraw geography?

No other nations yet that will be see their geography change like this. Unless the southern tip of Europe gets connected to Africa

It still has to happen inside possibility parameters. The Waddensea getting filled up with sediment is a possibility, it is happening constantly, Zealand being expanded or winning back land there has been discussed as well. There was actually a day between Frisia and one of the islands before the Afsluitdijk was build, so there is room and information to play with

[Jorgen]

2 hours ago, Wolf_pd said:

No other nations yet that will be see their geography change like this. Unless the southern tip of Europe gets connected to Africa

It still has to happen inside possibility parameters. The Waddensea getting filled up with sediment is a possibility, it is happening constantly, Zealand being expanded or winning back land there has been discussed as well. There was actually a day between Frisia and one of the islands before the Afsluitdijk was build, so there is room and information to play with

That's right. Just as the Waddensea isles "walked" about a bit through the ages and some of them emerged and submerged again. Could be an entire nation of it's own.

[Wolf_pd]

I think they are too small for that but then being connected and bigger or more populated is an option. Obviously the population will have to come from somewhere and that would have an effect on where the population disappeared. I think I start to have an idea

[Jorgen]

On 24/06/2023 at 22:20, Wolf_pd said:

I think they are too small for that but then being connected and bigger or more populated is an option. Obviously the population will have to come from somewhere and that would have an effect on where the population disappeared. I think I start to have an idea

Well, small indeed, but not so small as you might suspect. The combined Waddensea isles of The Netherlands, Germany and Denmark have a land surface area of about 1100 km² (bigger than Andorra, Malta, LIechtenstein, Monaco and Vactican City combined), If you include sea area, it's about 10.000 km². Texel and Rømó are the 9th and 10th biggest islands in the Nordsea. You could add the infamous Helgoland too. There are so many possibilities. I am curious to find out what you will come up with.

Edited June 30, 2023 by Jorgen

[Wolf_pd]

Anyone can advice me a good kitcreator? I have some evil plans for Dutch clubs at the moment 

I am rewriting the watery history for the Netherlands to create Frisia, but that's mainly because it's too warm inside to edit and my holiday is still ongoing. No Frisia history coming out soon. I am first going to walk you through the steps of the Americas.

As a matter of fact I have started testing some stuff there. The first thing is that I have removed all international tournaments (both club and nation), as I want to extinct a few nations (unless I am going to reuse them later on) and before I build the American continental cups, it's easiest to have them all deleted.

I do it in such a way that I have a separate deletion file where all international tournaments are deleted. Whenever I start building a tournament, I will undo the delete in the deletion file and build the tournament in a different file. In the end the deletion file will itself be deleted as all changes are then in the files that I have created for regions and nations. So right now I am just running some tests to see if there are any competitions I missed (sometimes some international competitions for some reasons are linked at nation level). In the meantime I have also been doing some tests to see which nations uses which namebases. For now only in Oceania and I already have seen some surprising results. Kiribati, Wallis & Futuna and New Zealand could be reused in a different manner. Aotearoa will be there though.

[Wolf_pd]

In the meantime I am reading through the various nations for their competitions setup. The baseline here is that I want to setup competition in a very very basic form. Say I know the Mexican competition will be 16 teams, it will be a single round robin for 16 teams, just I can start setting up the international competitions in simple forms as well. This might sound as extra work, but usually I start basic rules to see how things run, issues with dates and teams not properly qualifying can easily be spotted like that. It is also a lot easier to get a start with things before you start renaming and everything as that takes up research time. While the game is running tests, you can then research, properly decide on the competition setup and decide on the teams and of course if you want to go really crazy, you can already research history

[grade]

On 30/06/2023 at 13:23, Wolf_pd said:

Anyone can advice me a good kitcreator? I have some evil plans for Dutch clubs at the moment 

I am rewriting the watery history for the Netherlands to create Frisia, but that's mainly because it's too warm inside to edit and my holiday is still ongoing. No Frisia history coming out soon. I am first going to walk you through the steps of the Americas.

As a matter of fact I have started testing some stuff there. The first thing is that I have removed all international tournaments (both club and nation), as I want to extinct a few nations (unless I am going to reuse them later on) and before I build the American continental cups, it's easiest to have them all deleted.

I do it in such a way that I have a separate deletion file where all international tournaments are deleted. Whenever I start building a tournament, I will undo the delete in the deletion file and build the tournament in a different file. In the end the deletion file will itself be deleted as all changes are then in the files that I have created for regions and nations. So right now I am just running some tests to see if there are any competitions I missed (sometimes some international competitions for some reasons are linked at nation level). In the meantime I have also been doing some tests to see which nations uses which namebases. For now only in Oceania and I already have seen some surprising results. Kiribati, Wallis & Futuna and New Zealand could be reused in a different manner. Aotearoa will be there though.

Depends. How much control do you want to create your kits? Are you well-versed in Photoshop? Then you have SS kits (sortitout), which has thousands upon thousands of kits, of different kinds and brands.

But if you want to create several kits in one click (you have to do some pre-work before by editing some files in code to do all of it in one go). Explore Kitbasher.

[Wolf_pd]

I have a few kits I want to edit for some teams that will see change, but most will remain the same so spending some time in Photoshop (or GIMP in my case) is not an issue

[Wolf_pd]

On 02/07/2023 at 16:35, grade said:

Depends. How much control do you want to create your kits? Are you well-versed in Photoshop? Then you have SS kits (sortitout), which has thousands upon thousands of kits, of different kinds and brands.

But if you want to create several kits in one click (you have to do some pre-work before by editing some files in code to do all of it in one go). Explore Kitbasher.

I found Kitbasher and already put some kits together as a tryout

[grade]

7 minutes ago, Wolf_pd said:

I found Kitbasker and already put some kits together as a tryout

Nice. They actually look pretty good.

Edited July 3, 2023 by grade

[Wolf_pd]

Might be just me, but I like the understated/classic jerseys like this.

The right jersey could have happened if the Philips brothers hadn't started their own sports club. They were sponsors of FC Eindhoven before PSV Eindhoven was founded (says this FC Eindhoven fan with regret in his voice).

[Wolf_pd]

After some research today in Amsterdam  No I was in Artis Zoo in Amsterdam, but it is funny how you go through the city and think to yourself, I can change, I can change that.

In the meantime FM23 picked up an error in one of my Historical Divergence files, so I need to check and fix tonight.

But as it is end of holiday tomorrow I will go back to the Iron Curtain end of the week. Tomorrow first work day and Tuesday intake new physio, so it will be Friday before I get to work in the editor again.

[Wolf_pd]

Anyone familiar with Neutral Moresnet by any chance?

[grade]

I learn something new today. Never heard of Neutral Moresnet. Interesting.

[Jaqudr]

You're doing a super job, let's hope you can finish and undoubtedly it will be the best mod for FM ever. Any chance you'll do Upper Silesia?

[Wolf_pd]

Silesia has been on my list, but I am still considering my options in Central and Eastern Europe. There it has been mostly looking around and seeing the possibilites. Frisia was easier as I am Dutch, so that could be done with ease.

Neutral Moresnet came up during a birthday a few weeks as the person I was visiting lives in a small Dutch village which has been set up by foreigners who have links with Neutral Moresnet. And it of course opens several other options to think about.

[Wolf_pd]

On 04/07/2023 at 18:30, Wolf_pd said:

In the meantime FM23 picked up an error in one of my Historical Divergence files, so I need to check and fix tonight.

Error fixed and back to testruns. Turned out I missed deleting a competition (exactly the reason why I am doing the tests).

[Wolf_pd]

Personally I am not that interested in adding youth tournaments as I am more focused on the senior tournaments. So for the Iron Curtain I always delete the U17 World Cup for instance.

How do you look at it? I was reading a FIFA proposal to improve the current landscape of youth tournaments and it did give me some ideas to work on and possibly some improvements for the editor to set up tournaments.

For instance, I would love to have an option to allow for tournaments to be played in 1 city!

[grade]

On 03/08/2023 at 11:31, Wolf_pd said:

Personally I am not that interested in adding youth tournaments as I am more focused on the senior tournaments. So for the Iron Curtain I always delete the U17 World Cup for instance.

How do you look at it? I was reading a FIFA proposal to improve the current landscape of youth tournaments and it did give me some ideas to work on and possibly some improvements for the editor to set up tournaments.

For instance, I would love to have an option to allow for tournaments to be played in 1 city!

Where did you read those proposals for FIFA Youth Tournaments?

[Wolf_pd]

11 minutes ago, grade said:

Where did you read those proposals for FIFA Youth Tournaments?

https://digitalhub.fifa.com/m/687f15d2c3eca79b/original/FIFA-Proposal-for-the-future-of-global-youth-competitions.pdf

This link

[XaW]

On 03/08/2023 at 12:31, Wolf_pd said:

Personally I am not that interested in adding youth tournaments as I am more focused on the senior tournaments. So for the Iron Curtain I always delete the U17 World Cup for instance.

How do you look at it? I was reading a FIFA proposal to improve the current landscape of youth tournaments and it did give me some ideas to work on and possibly some improvements for the editor to set up tournaments.

For instance, I would love to have an option to allow for tournaments to be played in 1 city!

Personally, I'd like to see youth tournaments as well, but I also have no issue with it being a fringe priority due to the heavy amounts of stuff already in the works. Youth tournaments always flesh out the world for me, so that's why I would like it, ideally.

[Wolf_pd]

In the meantime I am slowly gathering data input for the instances where I want to expand the lower leagues.

@XaW @MichielVM and @animal31 have given me the OK to use teams from their Norwegian, Belgian and Canadian files when needed. Thank you very much for that, as it will save me much time.

Links for their files

https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/569343-fm234-norwegian-lower-leagues-done-all-the-way-down-to-11th-tier/

https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/575641-update-11-fm23-chielens-total-belgian-lower-league-overhaul/

https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/569385-528-team-11-level-canadian-pyramid-222340/

[Wolf_pd]

Some update on this project. When the FM24 editor comes out, all files will be converted to 24.1 and I will continue there. Geography changes is currently on version 100 (and counting) and that's the most important file for now.

[Wolf_pd]

Anyone in this thread from New Zealand or Australia?

[Vakama2619]

5 hours ago, Wolf_pd said:

Anyone in this thread from New Zealand or Australia?

Aussie here. Not sure how much I'll be able to help tho

Edited October 25, 2023 by Vakama2619

[Wolf_pd]

14 hours ago, Vakama2619 said:

Aussie here. Not sure how much I'll be able to help tho

I want to bounce some thoughts and ideas. WIll contact you probably this weekend via PM

[Vakama2619]

4 hours ago, Wolf_pd said:

I want to bounce some thoughts and ideas. WIll contact you probably this weekend via PM

Feel free, will probably be AFK at the time but you're more than welcome

[Wolf_pd]

So while we are waiting for the release of the editor I have been thinking a bit of Oceania (working on some base data thoughts for Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands and I am working out the big puzzle called Europe.
As Europe has a big effect on the rest of the world in terms of colonisation and decolonisation I needed to rework some of my initial idea to make the historical divergence a possibility. Some things would not have worked out otherwise in terms of 'realism'

So I came up with the word ignition point which is the moment that an area of the world is set on fire and the history was changed. I got the following for ignition points for Europe, with the first one being obvious. I might pick another few out when I read through the American histories again

- Napoleonic Wars (you have seen that in South and Central America)
- Unification of Germany (the one around 1870, not that one from 1990)
- Unification of Italy
- Irish independence
- Scandinavian royal houses
- Winter War
- Spanish Civil War
- Balkan Wars early 20th century
- First World War
- Algerian War of Independence (yes, it is North-Africa, but this one is probably a lot more relevant than you will realise)

[themodelcitizen]

If France hadn't been so busy with wars in Europe they might have been able to devote more to the French and Indian Wars in North America. Imagine a modern day geography where the Midwest is mostly French, with greater Mexico and Russian America on the western frontier? Maybe not the same ideas you're working on but still fun to think about

[Wolf_pd]

4 hours ago, themodelcitizen said:

If France hadn't been so busy with wars in Europe they might have been able to devote more to the French and Indian Wars in North America. Imagine a modern day geography where the Midwest is mostly French, with greater Mexico and Russian America on the western frontier? Maybe not the same ideas you're working on but still fun to think about

The possibilities are endless and are part of the challenge in this project as well. I keep on reading through things and thinking about all directions it can go. 

[Jorgen]

Creating your own world in your mind is the biggest part of the fun 😊😊
When I did mine and was almost completely satisfied with the results, I got loads of new ideas again 😅

[Wolf_pd]

49 minutes ago, Jorgen said:

Creating your own world in your mind is the biggest part of the fun 😊😊
When I did mine and was almost completely satisfied with the results, I got loads of new ideas again 😅

Oh yes, the dreaded "Hey, I could redo that". Already saw a few of those in my Americas map.