[FM24.3] USA to D4 (USL2) + Canadian Championship fix

[Marco Borghesi]

i seeeeee it make sense

 

[themodelcitizen]

Award histories have been filled out, it's nice seeing the other names who have won Coach of the Year in each division if you win it in on your way up, journeyman-style.

Every playable team now has league histories filed out and a stadium set, it was just a few lower division sides missing stadiums but it was throwing off playoff hosting if they happened to make it that far.

Most of the unplayable teams now have a home as well, but I think there's still a small chance you'll have to travel to an "unknown stadium" in the early rounds of the Open Cup if you're playing as a tier 4 side.

Speaking of the USOC, MLS teams are back in the Open Cup for now, sounds like they'll use a bunch of rookies but under the main roster. Check out my Intercontinental Cup file for another MLS/MX-friendly tournament from 2024.

Edited December 26, 2023 by themodelcitizen

[dino88]

Hi mate, I know I'm coming back to this. Is there no way you can merge the NCAA section from another file into your work? Yours looks amazing and would love to take a go, but with the NCAA. 

[themodelcitizen]

Sounds fun, let me know when you've got a completed NCAA file and how the experiments merging them go and we can try to release something together

[dino88]

17 hours ago, themodelcitizen said:

Sounds fun, let me know when you've got a completed NCAA file and how the experiments merging them go and we can try to release something together

Hi mate, I've never used the editor to merge files. I'm pretty bad at it. There are some NCAA files from FM23 which many have picked up and attached to other files in the past. 

This is from FM20 - https://sortitoutsi.net/content/54298/usa-expansion-file 

 

[themodelcitizen]

Believe it or not I don't have time to do that either. In general adding NCAA is a square peg in a round hole, the game is not built for coaching at that level and it shows with all the issues with player movement. As you can tell I've put a lot of hours into focusing on USL2 instead, with a US database you kind of have to pick one (USL2 does all the same things with the draft). But if someone else wanted to put in the dozens of hours to make them work properly together, I'd consider working with them to release something

[EnigMattic1]

1 hour ago, themodelcitizen said:

Believe it or not I don't have time to do that either. In general adding NCAA is a square peg in a round hole, the game is not built for coaching at that level and it shows with all the issues with player movement. As you can tell I've put a lot of hours into focusing on USL2 instead, with a US database you kind of have to pick one (USL2 does all the same things with the draft). But if someone else wanted to put in the dozens of hours to make them work properly together, I'd consider working with them to release something

This is something I've been looking into (I have been adding U-Sports to my Canadian file for the past couple of FM's and that is a similar setup), but I have a lot of stuff going on in my personal life right now, so I've had to put it on the back burner for now. If I pick it up again and I can work something out, I will let you know. 

[sctchrs]

@themodelcitizen not sure if you heard but Capo FC is joining NISA in 2024

 

Article: NISA News

[Marco Borghesi]

hey @themodelcitizen happy new year. I just seen you upload a new file. 
Is there a bullet point list of what's change since versions?

M

[jstzan]

Hi, amazing work. Is it possible for you to do the same DB but with prom/rel? I don't seem to find anything like it on the net. I wanted to do it myself but I guess I'm not smart enough

[James T]

Hi @themodelcitizen (and others!) - this is fantastic work, I love it.

I've just simmed through a couple of seasons as I wanted to see how things went, and I noticed that the NISA Independent Cup only appears to play a first round in each of the 2023 and 2024 seasons.  Should there be extra rounds to this?  Just having one game seemed a little odd.

I tried to have a look at the real life competition, and the rules for it are... well... weird.  I wouldn't blame you for not attempting to recreate it as per real life (or if it would even be possible!).

[themodelcitizen]

NISA indy cup was only one round in 2023, like a showcase. As for bullet list of changes, no chance. Every update is more realism as I notice things, if anything is gamebreaking and needs a fresh save you'll hear about it. I saw Capo FC are setting up a team in NISA (probably keep their usl2 team too) but as mentioned repeatedly, this DB is for the 2023 team lineup (at least until a new update nukes everything and we have to fix it). Pro/rel version is not on the cards for now as I don't want to have to update two versions

[themodelcitizen]

On 04/01/2024 at 14:59, James T said:

Hi @themodelcitizen (and others!) - this is fantastic work, I love it.

I've just simmed through a couple of seasons as I wanted to see how things went, and I noticed that the NISA Independent Cup only appears to play a first round in each of the 2023 and 2024 seasons.  Should there be extra rounds to this?  Just having one game seemed a little odd.

I tried to have a look at the real life competition, and the rules for it are... well... weird.  I wouldn't blame you for not attempting to recreate it as per real life (or if it would even be possible!).

To expand on this. In real life the amateur teams play a play-in group (or two-legged game) and the winners go on to play the nearest NISA team. In my DB I haven't actually enabled that early round (just imagine it's happening like the very early FA Cup rounds that aren't reflected in-game). There's an argument to be made that it should be playable because there are a couple of USL2 clubs who have teams in NISA Nation (like Capo FC) but it seems like they're using a different team (lots of these clubs have youth programs and use their USL2 team as the highest rung)

[James T]

20 hours ago, themodelcitizen said:

To expand on this. In real life the amateur teams play a play-in group (or two-legged game) and the winners go on to play the nearest NISA team. In my DB I haven't actually enabled that early round (just imagine it's happening like the very early FA Cup rounds that aren't reflected in-game). There's an argument to be made that it should be playable because there are a couple of USL2 clubs who have teams in NISA Nation (like Capo FC) but it seems like they're using a different team (lots of these clubs have youth programs and use their USL2 team as the highest rung)

That makes a lot more sense now - forgive my ignorance!  Also just seen on the Independent Cup wiki page that each NISA team won their own regional section in 2023.  Feels a bit like a participation trophy, but if that's how it is, then so be it.

Thanks again for all you've done, it's clearly a tremendous effort that's gone into the file and it's hugely appreciated!

[themodelcitizen]

On 06/01/2024 at 19:18, James T said:

That makes a lot more sense now - forgive my ignorance!  Also just seen on the Independent Cup wiki page that each NISA team won their own regional section in 2023.  Feels a bit like a participation trophy, but if that's how it is, then so be it.

Thanks again for all you've done, it's clearly a tremendous effort that's gone into the file and it's hugely appreciated!

Yeah, some teams even posted a picture with their trophy ("Independent Cup southwest region" or whatever) after the one-game win against a lower division team, lol. I thought about splitting it into 9 different stages so each could award a trophy but it seemed a bit much. Also not sure it would verify with the weirdness about including lower division teams in cups this year (on verifying it thinks there aren't enough teams but works in-game, so each stage would probably fail to verify if split up). Will consider that too. Seems a bit cheap to effectively give each NISA team a gimme trophy every year mind you

EDIT: added the salary cap to USLC and USL1 based on their latest CBAs. They increase every year, then I think one ends in 2025 and one in 2027, so I've just left it blank after that (in case you build a superteam down there and need the extra space)

Edited January 13 by themodelcitizen

[torsportsfan]

Thank you for this. Started a game with Toronto FC, but was disappointed to see that TFC 2 never had any games scheduled. Having Nextpro loaded should really help then!

[EnigMattic1]

What Canadian files are this file compatible with? I'm assuming the one by @yellowsweatygorillaas his file is legendary around here, but how about the one by @SaintsCanada? 

[themodelcitizen]

Yes to both, just that if you're using yellow's file, DON'T use my CanChamp fix. He's added a couple of CanPL expansion teams and rejigged the Canadian Championship to fix it, so you'll need his continental files. But our leagues work together (and nicely). In general my stuff is compatible by default, it's where other files make large departures like that where any issues will come up

[torsportsfan]

In terms of speed, is it ok if I just do MLS as playable, then view-only for the rest? I want to play as Toronto FC, and have my Academy team play fixtures in MLS NEXT Pro, but the development between playable/view-only seems to be quite minimal this year, particularly if a human is managing a team!

I like the Next Pro for development reasons, but TBH don't want to waste processing power on results and full simulation on Ballard FC in USL II.

Thank you!

[themodelcitizen]

Not really sure about the differences, swore I read somewhere there was almost no point going "view only" as it loses a bunch of features for very little gain. You'd have to read up on it though. Can't you make everything playable but then go into "detail level" and take away the detail for all the leagues you're not playing? AFAIK players will still develop at (mostly) the same rate, but I could be wrong. It won't be quite as immersive as awards like goal of the month etc won't be awarded

[themodelcitizen]

BTW your academy team plays in "MLS Next", that's in the background anyway and they'll get a few cups regardless of what level you load. Your '2' team (which has some 20-something pros on it) plays in "MLS Next Pro", that's div 3.

One of the big benefits of a playable USL2 is scouting players for the MLS draft. Then when the draft comes around, they'll have a detailed history (not made up stats)

[McBride]

hey! you haven't thought about putting Brooklyn FC in there have you? They are supposed to play in the USL League On beginning in 2025.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_FC_(USL)

[themodelcitizen]

I might start adding teams like that after the final game update/patch, especially if they move rosters around for 2024 (they might even add unique IDs for the teams). At the moment it makes sense to keep the 2023 team lineup and rosters

[ItsComingHome]

Have you tried to move teams around between the divisions in the editor? I'm having no luck, seems like it's only an MLS issue as it's possible in other leagues. So promote and demote teams in the editor. 

[themodelcitizen]

You'd have to go into registered teams as well, I think that's how it distributes them into different conferences. But they all have stuff like draft picks and international slots hard-coded don't they? Feel like that would break something to move them around

[oJMPx]

On 24/11/2023 at 19:00, themodelcitizen said:

 

Does ANYONE know how to get rid of that annoying "[B team] cannot be promoted" red text that comes up at the bottom of the league table for any (closed) lower league that includes a 'B' team? Obviously no one can get promoted, but it keeps showing up. I've changed all the promotion/relegation settings in USL2 and the upper tiers to allow for B teams to be promoted (if anyone could at least), and set the "promotion" spots in league settings to 0, but it still thinks it's important to let the user know that none of the reserve teams can be promoted

Did you ever figure out how to get rid of the red promotion text mate? Got the same issue with my AFL/VFL league structure. AFL reserve teams in the VFL, 0 promotions, yet that annoying red text is there

 

EDIT: I think i've managed to work out how to remove the red "cannot be promoted" text

Instead of having my division as level 2 in the basic editor, i created it in the "reserve" structure section, converted to advanced rules, then converted that division to Level 2 by changing division type and adding them to the comp section on nation page. This has removed the cannot be promoted text and all seems to be working fine. Just run a 25 year in game test and everything is working

Hope this makes sense 

@themodelcitizen

Edited March 4 by oJMPx
Fixed problem

[themodelcitizen]

Wow that looks brilliant. Will work on it this week, I wonder if I can do anything with an already-built set of advanced rules by changing the division type, verifying, then changing it back and re-verifying. Have you had any success with anything like that? Maybe I can import my rules or something into a fresh file but that usually seems to throw up issues.

TBH I've barely touched the editor since the New Year, had some holiday time and came back refreshed and focusing on other projects. The US Open Cup news made me think about it, but for now I think I'm happy with a file that focuses on the 2023 rules and applies them forever - if SI don't plan any further than one season at a time, why should I? At least until they finish patching things so we don't get messed up by extinct or newly created teams or competitions

[themodelcitizen]

This is updated for FM 24.3, although I haven't tested it in-game, just verified it in the editor and it didn't throw up any problems. Let me know if you see anything that looks off. Will keep working on that "team A cannot be promoted" error message, thanks @oJMPx

Edited March 7 by themodelcitizen

[gaucharro]

Good evening! The link to the kits in FM Slovakia is broken.

[themodelcitizen]

So go on there and try search terms like USA, USL, MLS etc

[gaucharro]

hace 4 horas, themodelcitizen dijo:

So go on there and try search terms like USA, USL, MLS etc

I have done it already and downloaded the kits. Anyway, what I wrote was for you to know it so you could fix in the opening post.

Thanks anyway.

[Tigerman500]

Is there a way to get Reserve (MLS Next Pro, Loudoun United) teams to get MLS Academy players on loan for games just like IRL?

[themodelcitizen]

20 hours ago, Tigerman500 said:

Is there a way to get Reserve (MLS Next Pro, Loudoun United) teams to get MLS Academy players on loan for games just like IRL?

I don't think so. I've played with the boxes under affiliation like "loan players to senior team" but couldn't seem to get it working. We could maybe find a workaround but it would be a lot harder to get the AI managers to know when to utilize it too

[Tigerman500]

28 minutes ago, themodelcitizen said:

I don't think so. I've played with the boxes under affiliation like "loan players to senior team" but couldn't seem to get it working. We could maybe find a workaround but it would be a lot harder to get the AI managers to know when to utilize it too

Yeah it's very picky. I updated MLS Next Pro rosters on my own file.

Edited April 2 by Tigerman500

[themodelcitizen]

That's awesome. Like created players? You could at least start the first season with a bunch of guys pre-loaned to the II team, but obviously it's not as fun as the game-by-game decisions you're talking about. I haven't played an in-depth MLS season in a while but I remember setting reminders to the day before every game (and every II team game) to assess the roster and decide who to loan up and down.

Probably the only time save-scumming is justified, like if you calculate the salary cap right but the game decides to round up a currency conversion instead of down and you end up over it's fun and challenging but you can understand why a lot of people shy away from coaching here

[Tigerman500]

1 hour ago, themodelcitizen said:

That's awesome. Like created players? You could at least start the first season with a bunch of guys pre-loaned to the II team, but obviously it's not as fun as the game-by-game decisions you're talking about. I haven't played an in-depth MLS season in a while but I remember setting reminders to the day before every game (and every II team game) to assess the roster and decide who to loan up and down.

Probably the only time save-scumming is justified, like if you calculate the salary cap right but the game decides to round up a currency conversion instead of down and you end up over it's fun and challenging but you can understand why a lot of people shy away from coaching here

I'm doing all players already in the game. I can see some guys not in the game. Like San Jose's rookies and Matthew Bell on RSL.

[Jorgen]

Is it hard to add more expansion teams? (Like Las Vegas, Phoenix, etc) Or is such a thing very easy to do myself?

[Tigerman500]

3 hours ago, Jorgen said:

Is it hard to add more expansion teams? (Like Las Vegas, Phoenix, etc) Or is such a thing very easy to do myself?

to MLS? or the other leagues?

[EnigMattic1]

5 hours ago, Jorgen said:

Is it hard to add more expansion teams? (Like Las Vegas, Phoenix, etc) Or is such a thing very easy to do myself?

To a league without hard coding (like the MLS), it is kinda easy. I've just added 8 teams to the CPL over a 4 year period. You just have to duplicate the league rules and remember to do the rankings as well. 

[themodelcitizen]

What do they do in the meantime? Sign players to just train and do nothing? Play friendlies? I suppose you could put a transfer embargo on them until a certain date but you don't want them to join with a bare-bones roster either

[Jorgen]

3 hours ago, Tigerman500 said:

to MLS? or the other leagues?

To MLS yes

 

1 hour ago, EnigMattic1 said:

To a league without hard coding (like the MLS), it is kinda easy. I've just added 8 teams to the CPL over a 4 year period. You just have to duplicate the league rules and remember to do the rankings as well. 

That might already be more than I know how to do. (If only edited player transfers and team reputations before)

 

28 minutes ago, themodelcitizen said:

What do they do in the meantime? Sign players to just train and do nothing? Play friendlies? I suppose you could put a transfer embargo on them until a certain date but you don't want them to join with a bare-bones roster either

So it might be easier to add them right away or at the same time as the already planned expansion team?

[Tigerman500]

MLS is hard-coded but the other leagues in USA are pretty easy to edit.

[Jorgen]

13 minutes ago, Tigerman500 said:

MLS is hard-coded but the other leagues in USA are pretty easy to edit.

I was thinking about a MLS containing 32 teams. But that might be above my editor knowledge.

[EnigMattic1]

2 hours ago, themodelcitizen said:

What do they do in the meantime? Sign players to just train and do nothing? Play friendlies? I suppose you could put a transfer embargo on them until a certain date but you don't want them to join with a bare-bones roster either

I gave them a transfer embargo until January 1st (season starts in April and they still take part in the draft) of their first season. 

[EnigMattic1]

1 hour ago, Jorgen said:

I was thinking about a MLS containing 32 teams. But that might be above my editor knowledge.

The issue with the MLS is going to be the draft. If I recall, unlike the CPL draft, there is a degree of hard coding involved with the MLS drafts. 

[themodelcitizen]

Before CanPL was in the game I'd thought about trying to just use MLS wholesale, keeping the unique IDs but renaming and moving all the teams to Canada. Fix up their rosters and maybe remove the salary rules but the cap and everything would still exist (could change USL2 to USports). Like a 29-team CanPL. I think @Al Clark might have done something similar but 10-15 years ago or so when it would have been a much smaller project

[EnigMattic1]

7 hours ago, themodelcitizen said:

Before CanPL was in the game I'd thought about trying to just use MLS wholesale, keeping the unique IDs but renaming and moving all the teams to Canada. Fix up their rosters and maybe remove the salary rules but the cap and everything would still exist (could change USL2 to USports). Like a 29-team CanPL. I think @Al Clark might have done something similar but 10-15 years ago or so when it would have been a much smaller project

Ideally, I want to have a similar setup to the MLS in that there is an East/West conference setup for the CPL. But, 2 conferences of 8 teams isn't enough and I don't want to go around sticking random teams in there just to make up the numbers.

I would like to bring the likes of Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Thunder Bay and FC Manitoba "home" though, but I doubt Thunder Bay and FC Manitoba would be at a CPL level and, given how the CanChamp plays out, the 3 MLS sides "should" walk the league. 

There are definitely enough teams to use in order to replicate an MLS style pyramid, I mean, the MMSL has over 70 teams and both Vancouver leagues (VMSL and VISL) are pretty full Maybe that is a project for down the line? 

[CluHaywood]

@themodelcitizen I'm now on my third attempt trying to manage a USL Championship side with this file and I'm largely unable to sign anyone. I've freed up $900K in salary cap space and nearly every player I approach gives me the "I would be willing/very interested to join the club in general, but I feel the club lacks the financial muscle to met his contract demands". 

I have a GK that is on $150K/year, but the most I've been able to offer was $14K/year. I couldn't even cover the full loan of a player on $24K/year. Something seems broken here. 

Is there something that is severely limiting the salaries I'm able to offer? Has anyone run into this issue on a USL Championship save? 

Edited April 14 by CluHaywood

[themodelcitizen]

Thanks for the feedback. Which club? I wonder if we need to adjust overall finances down there, maybe if they don't see enough money coming in they won't free up any for signings. The CBS deal IRL means we might be able to keep it realistic in the process.

I've coached in the lower divisions before and it was a struggle but not to that extent. FYI salary cap space may not correspond to the board's understanding of how much they can spare - is there a separate wage budget anywhere under finances? That would be a more realistic look at room for new signings. But still, they shouldn't be stonewalling you with 900K of cap room. Once I hear more details I'll start brainstorming and testing

[CluHaywood]

15 hours ago, themodelcitizen said:

Thanks for the feedback. Which club? I wonder if we need to adjust overall finances down there, maybe if they don't see enough money coming in they won't free up any for signings. The CBS deal IRL means we might be able to keep it realistic in the process.

I've coached in the lower divisions before and it was a struggle but not to that extent. FYI salary cap space may not correspond to the board's understanding of how much they can spare - is there a separate wage budget anywhere under finances? That would be a more realistic look at room for new signings. But still, they shouldn't be stonewalling you with 900K of cap room. Once I hear more details I'll start brainstorming and testing

Hartford Athletic. I see the traditional wage budget which you can technically raise by transferring transfer budget over, but I assume this will be enforced when registering players for the league. 

I ended up freeing up over $1.1 Million in the wage budget (only 600K on the books), and still couldn't offer more than $14.75K a year, so clearly something is amiss. I did a few test saves in other leagues after this and haven't had any problems. I couldn't see anything particularly out of whack when looking at the club in the editor (having loaded your file) and the club finances were fine, nothing looked wrong when checking the club with the in-game editor either. 

 

The only small detail that may have looked odd was when I looked at contract types for USLC (Star player, Important, etc...) they didn't have a categorization (full time, part time, amateur, etc...). Not sure if that has any impact. I also used the "Real World" setting when trying this save, not sure if that might've thrown a wrench in the works. 

Also thanks again for all the hard work you've put into this, I don't want to sound like I'm complaining one bit. I've never run into this issue before in 20 years of FM, so I'm trying to get the bottom of it. 

 

EDIT: Tested this using the original game mode, still have the same problem. So it isn't a problem with future transfers coming in and out. 

Edited April 15 by CluHaywood