Starting dates for WC Qualifying

[Ominous77]

Greetings!

I'm creating the World Cup and the qualifiers, but I cannot make it work so the qualifiers start in a given year and end in two years, and then the WC starts next year to that.

I'm using the "Start year" option along with the "Start and End Year Offset" option in Date Range, and I put the interval to 4, but it just doesn't work. Either the comps do no start at all or they get played every year.

I looked at the original competitions in the database but they don't have stages or anything, they are almost blank so there's almost nothing to copy.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks!

[rusty217]

The important ones are Year, Year Interval and Start Year on the Requirements page. The Base Year for Dates, Setup Date, Season Update Day and Date Range on the General page.

For the Requirements page, Year is just the base year it runs from, can effectively be anything, even something way before the start year. The Year Interval is how often it runs. And the Start Year is when this rule set should begin.

So for example if you have a Year of 2003 and a Year Interval of 4, that means it will run every 4 years with 2003 as the base. So, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015, 2019, 2023, 2027 etc. If you set the Start Year to 2023 then it will only begin that cycle from 2023 onwards, so it would change to 2023, 2027 etc.

On the General Page, the Base Year for Dates is just the year it bases things on, it doesn't have to be the same as the Year or Start Year, but it does have to be consistent. Whatever you set is basically considered year 1. So if you set it as 2000, then any dates set as 2000 would be in the competition start year, any dates set in 2001 are in the competition start year +1 and so on. So a Start Year of 2023 with a Base Year of 2000 would mean any fixture dates set to 2000 would take place in 2023, fixtures set in 2001 in 2024 and so on.

Setup Date is when the competition draws teams and starts creating stages. It's based on the Base Year mentioned above If left blank then the competition will effectively setup immediately. Not particularly ideal if you want it to be seeded based on world rankings, whatever the rankings are when the competition is setup will be the ones used. So for example is the competition starts in 2026 and the setup date is in 2022, then it will use 2022 rankings to decide the teams it draws and schedule the competition immediately, not the 2026 rankings. Also important to note that this HAS to be after the previous version of the competition has finished. So for example if you have a base year of 2000 and set the setup date to 1999 then it will setup one year before the competition begins, potentially clashing with the previous version of the tournament if it hasn't concluded by then. If you have a base year of 2000 and a setup date of 2022 then it will setup 22 years after the competition begins, so the 2023 version wouldn't setup until 2045.

Season Update Day is when the competition ends, clears everything and gets ready for the next version. In my experience it's a bit buggy and is probably best to leave it blank, then the competition will just update when the final stage ends.

The Date Range is what's typically used for the history record. Just set it to when matches are played in the tournament. So if the first match is June 2023 and the last one is October 2025 and the competition runs in 2023, then Start Month = June with 0 offset, End Month = October with 2 offset.

 

Of course you need to spread your fixture dates out through the years you want the competition to run based on the Base Year for Dates too. If you do that, everything finishes in time and there is no overlap between any of the dates in different years of the tournament then it should all run fine.

[Ominous77]

I understood it mostly like you explained, except for a few bits.

However, I think I did the setup as you explained but now the qualifiers just don't start, at all.

The idea is for the Qualifiers to run from March 2019 to August 2021. The World Cup is set to run on November through December 2022.

[rusty217]

That looks ok. Although out of interest why are you just using Mar, Jun & Aug dates? Why not the Sep, Oct and Nov International windows?

Under International Competitions (10) have you got the qualifiers listed as one of the competitions?

Other than that, I'd suggest the Test Competitions option just below Advanced Rules. Run a test up to 2020ish and have a look at the test entry for that competition, that may help identify the issue. Could be something like it isn't picking up enough teams or something. There could definitely be an issue other than the dates affecting it.

[Ominous77]

International windows are hard-coded? Since I deleted everything I tought I could made up my own international dates.

Yes, all the comps are listed under the "International Competitions" rule.

I cannot test it because it's a merged XML. However, after changing the fixture dates list for a normal date picker (Start and End date in the schedule tab), I managed to get the qualifiers running, although they run for 1.5 years, and the WC doesn't get scheduled at all, don't know why.

I have the qualifications set up like this in each qualifier:

And like this in the WC:

Any ideas?

Thanks!

[rusty217]

1 hour ago, Ominous77 said:

International windows are hard-coded? Since I deleted everything I tought I could made up my own international dates.

Kind of. I mean, I expect leagues, cups etc. are still going to take a break for those windows even if you haven't got internationals happening. Not only that they're not going to have breaks for your new ones unless you specifically edit competitions to tell them to take a break. Matches can get postponed due to international callups, but it's going to be kind of uneven schedule wise then, with only some matches getting postponed and having to find somewhere to fit them in later in the season.

Good that you got the qualifiers running. As for the World Cup, not sure whether that's an issue with some of the WC settings or with team qualification. I don't know anything about XML stuff, so I'm not sure why you can't test, I mean the Test Competitions tab just below Advanced Rules and above Database in the menu on the left, I don't see any reason that shouldn't work. This one:

I don't mean verify, although in my experience not being able to verify is a bad sign anyway.

 

[Ominous77]

I mean that I can't test without the editor throwing weird errors, which I believe happens because of the merges. For example, in this case, it throws this error:

I managed to make new national and continental structures via XML, without testing, and they work fine in the game.

[rusty217]

8 hours ago, Ominous77 said:

I mean that I can't test without the editor throwing weird errors, which I believe happens because of the merges. For example, in this case, it throws this error:

I managed to make new national and continental structures via XML, without testing, and they work fine in the game.

That looks like a pretty standard error to me, not a "weird" one. I'd suggest looking into what's causing it and fixing it. 9/10 times you can get your file working perfectly in game by fixing all the errors that come up when testing. Plus you can still run a test even with the errors, that's one of the ways to identify what is actually causing the error too, so you really should try it.

Skipping testing can sometimes get things to work in game, but only because the game fudges things to make it work. That's how you end up with things like Spain participating in Asian World Cup Qualifying though.

[Ominous77]

Thanks for the advice.

I managed to narrow down the cause of my World Cup not running. For some reason, it's not picking the qualified teams, which I find weird.
If you could have a look I'd appreciate it.

Qualifiers:

World Cup:

 

Thanks and happy New Year!

[rusty217]

Get Qualified Teams From Stage is usually just to move teams from one stage to another. Try using Get Qualified Teams For Comp instead. No need to select any competitions or stages either, it'll automatically look for teams qualified for the current competition.

[Ominous77]

That was my first choice. "Get qualified teams for comp" and I added the seedings and "WCC" as the competition they had qualified for, but it still didn't work.

Maybe I have to get rid of the seedings in the qualifiers?

[rusty217]

If the seedings don't match exactly then it won't work.

Otherwise, did you set up requirements for the WC Group Stage? It needs requirements to ensure that it doesn't try to setup until after the qualifiers have finished, or it won't have qualified teams when it tries. A setup date after the end of all qualifiers would work too.

[Ominous77]

Yeah, I set the requierments so the qualifieras must end before the WC can be set up. Apart from that, I tried "Get qualified teams for comp" with and without seedings and it's the same, the comp doesn't start. The teams seem to qualify but the WC is not picking them up for whatever reason.

If I tell it to pick 32 random national teams, or X number from each continent to reach 32 total, then the comp works so it's an issue with qualifying.

I don't get it. There's no other international comp in the db, just the qualifiers and the WC.

[rusty217]

What are your settings for the qualifiers themselves? I mean, the details panel when you set up the qualifications.

[Ominous77]

This you mean?

[themodelcitizen]

If it's still throwing up those errors on testing that's probably it, for example that error you posted is telling you Europe WCQ hasn't finished in time (so it doesn't have the required 32 teams and doesn't schedule). Ignoring those or finding workarounds will just cause more problems in other areas. That date issue could be from a mistyped offset year somewhere in "requirements" or dates (such as a 0 where a -1 should be or something like that)
 

edit: what are you trying to do with that "bottom position"? Isn't that telling the game that positions 1 through 6 from the same group all qualify? The "league fate" and qualification type might be redundant if everything else is set properly (not sure on that)

Edited January 3, 2023 by themodelcitizen

[rusty217]

2 hours ago, Ominous77 said:

This you mean?

Try ticking the For This Year box. It might be trying to qualify them for the next WC instead of the current one.

[Ominous77]

You know what? That make it all work (sort of).

I have the WC scheduled to be played every 4 years, starting in 2022 (I was using 2020 as of now, so I didn't need to simulate so much), however, for some reason it doesn't want to start (same as before).

I checked and there shouldn't be any conflicts. The Qualifiers are set to run from 2019 to 2021 (although they end in 2020), the national cups are scheduled for 2016 and the Confederations cup on 2017. All with a 4-year interval and 2000 as Base Year For Dates.

Just changing the Year from 2000 to 2002 and the Start Year from 2020 to 2022 for the WC makes it so it doesn't get scheduled.

[themodelcitizen]

What other errors is testing throwing up? I know you said those were the result of merges but they look like more of a result of issues needing a fix

[Ominous77]

Both files (the one that works with the WC in 2020 and the one that doesn't, with the WC in 2022) throw the same error if a test them: "Match date for WC lies outside date range for the competition".

Maybe 2022 is hard-coded somehow, even after deleting everything.

[themodelcitizen]

That's odd, makes me wonder if qualifying isn't finishing in time or sending too many qualifiers somehow (like your Europe screenshot saying the top 5 teams from each group all qualified). Then the tournament is effectively delayed so long that when it finally tries to play it's well outside the "months" or "dates" of the competition

[Ominous77]

Qualifying is fine, I'm just testing with them being 10-team league stages, where the top 5 qualify, except for UEFA and CONMEBOL, that qualify the top 6. 
They show up as qualified in the summary screen for the WC.

I've been testing several combinations for the WC and the Qualifiers and, so far, only 2020 for the WC and 2019-20 for the Qualifiers seem to work.

[themodelcitizen]

Does testing throw up any other errors? Hard to say what's going wrong without a full picture of the setup/issues

[Ominous77]

Nope, just that.

There are pictures above.

[Ominous77]

Nevermind, I managed to fix almost everything by removing the Qualifiers from the WC requirements tab.

The only thing left for this to be perfect would be for the game to actually follow the calendar I made for the Qualifiers.
I set it up so the games are spread over 3 years. However, they all get played in the first 14 months.

Is there a way to re-do all international dates in custom form? Like, choose which dates have to be considered valid for international matches?

Thanks.

[themodelcitizen]

Dates and "break periods" sound like they might help there

[rusty217]

Yeah, Dates should do it. No competition has ever ignored the dates I've set before.

I noticed you had Fixture Dates set up a few posts back, but that's really just a reference list, you also have to tell the competition Stage to actually refer to those dates.

eg. here's my Fixture Dates page:

And here's my Dates list for Group A:

Most of the Dates used there just reference the ones on the Fixture Dates list. There are a couple extra that are being phased out, but that's all. You also don't need to set Dates for individual groups, you can just do it on the League Schedule (All Groups) page if you want every group to use the same date. I've just got it separate here since that's how the default qualifiers do it with the fixtures staggered and only a couple groups playing per day.

[Ominous77]

The fixture dates thing solved my problem with the Qualifiers. THey now run through 3 years without issues.

However, I decided to use fixture dates for all the international competitions and now the National cups (AFC Cup and OFC Cup) crash on Dec 4th 2020.
I checked and I think the issue has to do with the group stage matches. They are schedule in following days, like group A on 15th, group B on 16th, group A match 2 on 17th and so on.

I set the dates in League Schedule (All groups) so all groups could play on the same day each matchday (all matchdays 1 on day X, all matchdays 2 on day Y, etc). Maybe it has to do with the stadium rules? They are all set to Host.

[themodelcitizen]

If there's a stadium clash it usually delays a fixture 1 week by default. Is there any error showing up on testing? Crashing makes me wonder if it can't draw the teams its looking for

[Ominous77]

I found that the issue only happens in group stages so it might be a stadium clash. 

I don't understand. I used the fixture dates as explained by rusty.

Maybe I need to do it individually by group?

[rusty217]

3 minutes ago, Ominous77 said:

I found that the issue only happens in group stages so it might be a stadium clash. 

I don't understand. I used the fixture dates as explained by rusty.

Maybe I need to do it individually by group?

If it's a stadium clash then you'll need to setup additional fixtures or something. eg. the WC will use Dates for the games, but then have an offset date listed for every single match that splits the stadiums up. So if your first round has 5 matches, it'd have 5 offsets, each with a different stadium.

If you want to use a host country for it, don't use Host as the stadium, instead use Stadium 0, Stadium 1 etc. You can setup the Stadium Rules to draw multiple stadiums from the host country and they'll be listed as those. Or alternatively, just have teams play at home so there's no clash. Oh and remember whatever stadium you set on the Fixture Dates page will override any setting on the Stage/Rounds pages.

[Ominous77]

I can't find those "Stadium rules" you are talking about. I do have Stadium 0, Stadium 1, etc as options in stadiums.

[rusty217]

3 hours ago, Ominous77 said:

I can't find those "Stadium rules" you are talking about. I do have Stadium 0, Stadium 1, etc as options in stadiums.

The whole section titled Stadium Rules here.

You can either setup a host stadium pool there, like 1 stadium >60k, 4 stadiums >40k etc. or set it up on the Stadium Pool page telling it to get stadiums from the host nation (and making sure you've set the reset list option so it's not the same stadiums from the same country every time).

Then it uses those stadiums in top to bottom order, so whichever stadium was drawn first is Stadium 0, the second stadium is Stadium 1 etc. So you can guarantee the biggest stadium in the country is Stadium 0, the one the final is usually held at, and so on.

[Ominous77]

I don't have that in FM17.

Here is the closest thing (I think), but the rules get greyed out if I select a stadium:

[themodelcitizen]

There should still be "stadiums for fixture" or something on a "stadium" or "host nation" section further down, no? @Dave Fairbairn was the stadium guru on here for ages and that was dating back to even older versions than FM17

[Ominous77]

Nope.

[themodelcitizen]

Ohh OK those "grounds for match" should then correspond to stadium_0, stadium_1, etc. that you have the option of using with each fixture date/offset date

[Ominous77]

But I just can select a year and a stadium by name, nothing else. Stadium rules get greyed out.

[themodelcitizen]

Yes, keep adding, first stadium will be stadium_0 for that year (or every year if no year selected), second will be stadium_1, etc

[Ominous77]

But it's a tournament with host, so only that host's stadiums should be there. 

How could I do that? I can't know which country will be the next host.

[themodelcitizen]

then leave it blank and stadium_0 will automatically be the biggest stadium that fits that competition's requirements (if none, it will build like "(city name) Community Arena"), and so on

[Ominous77]

It's still scheduling the games one day after another, regardless of the fixture dates:

 

Also, how would I scheduled matches in knockout rounds? I don't see how I can tell the game to pick specific dates from the fixture dates:

[rusty217]

Because most of your Dates are on the same day.

If you want them as offset dates then they should be set as offset dates, the Dates page should have at most 1 Date per day.

[themodelcitizen]

The text in the editor makes sense 95% of the time, for example that "a match on this matchday is moved for each fixture date" is already answering your question

[Ominous77]

14 hours ago, rusty217 said:

Because most of your Dates are on the same day.

If you want them as offset dates then they should be set as offset dates, the Dates page should have at most 1 Date per day.

Ok, then I'd have only 6 dates total (3 for the group stage matches and 3 for the quarter finals, semis and final)? In that case, when I choose a date to be an offset date, it's there when the stadiums rules come into play? Like in the image above, I have 4 dates for the same day, just with different stadium rules.

If offset dates have to be in different days then it wouldn't make much sense to look for stadium rules since all matches could be played in the same stadium, right? The idea is for each group stage matchday to be played at the same time, for all groups, in different stadiums.

[themodelcitizen]

That does look a little unnecessarily complicated, you can use one fixture per date and then the offset dates for each fixture date don't even have to correspond to "fixture dates" themselves. If you can get a hold of the default rules for something like the World Cup or Copa America take a look at how they do it

[Ominous77]

This is how the World Cup does it:

However, there's no info about the stages or anything. Literally this is the only thing that shows up in Advanced Rules.

[themodelcitizen]

The first 6 are all 6 games for group A (I'd go into the group A matchday 1, and set an offset date using the first two group A fixture dates, for example). In your screenshot it looked like you had 26+ fixtures but only using three separate dates

[rusty217]

8 hours ago, Ominous77 said:

Ok, then I'd have only 6 dates total (3 for the group stage matches and 3 for the quarter finals, semis and final)? In that case, when I choose a date to be an offset date, it's there when the stadiums rules come into play? Like in the image above, I have 4 dates for the same day, just with different stadium rules.

If offset dates have to be in different days then it wouldn't make much sense to look for stadium rules since all matches could be played in the same stadium, right? The idea is for each group stage matchday to be played at the same time, for all groups, in different stadiums.

You misunderstand, this is the issue:

On 09/01/2023 at 04:54, Ominous77 said:

Offset dates being on the same day is fine, except you haven't listed them as offset dates. They're all just on the Dates page, so it's trying to use every single one of them when generating fixtures. You're telling it to schedule each team's first match on the 20th Nov, then their 2nd match on the 20th Nov, then their 3rd match on the 20th Nov and so on. It puts them in subsequent days because teams can't play more than 1 match per day.

It sounds like you want a 3 match group stage. In which case there should only be 3 entries on the Dates page there, not 24. It should just have 1 Date for each match (3 total) with the offsets attached to each one to split up the stadiums. Like this:

Teams play 3 matches each, so I've got 3 Dates listed (0, 2 & 4). Each Date then has an offset attached (1, 3 & 5) to tell it to move 1 match to a different day/time/stadium. They're all still part of the same match day though, which is the important part. If you list everything on the Dates page then it would try to schedule 24 match days per team. Would stop when they get to the maximum number of matches based on group settings, but would still schedule all matches immediately following each other since that's how they're listed on the Dates page.

[themodelcitizen]

Brilliant explanation. Sometimes it's worth putting both group A matchday 1 (for example) games as offsets just so you can see them next to each other with the stadium rules in front of you instead of having to cross-reference one (i.e. fixture date 0 in that last screenshot). But that's just for convenience, same effect