I decided to share my knowlege about this. Its one of the oldest problems on FM. This problem driving me crazy for many years and i finally found solution.
Some basic knowlege about advanced editor is needed here so dont waste your time if you dont know basics.
Dont waste your and my time if you dont know how to set simple promotion/relegation settings, promotion playoffs or similar things.
Let me first introduce you to the problem for people who doesnt know.
Imagine top division (we will call this division #1) with 18 teams. 4 teams from this division are relegated to second division (division #2). Division #2 is divisions with 4 regional divisions (north, east, west ,south)-16 teams each.
In every regional league of division #2 we have 1 promoted team and thats ok - 4 relegated and 4 promoted. In every regional league of division #2 we have 3 relegated teams to their regional lower divisions.
Eveyrthing seems ok so far because number of relegated and promoted teams is ok and we will get validation in editor.
Problem is happening when relegated teams from division #1 are not equally relegated to their regional divisions. Ideal combination is when we have 1 relegated team from every region and game relegate them to right division.
When that number is not equall we have problem.
For example:
- 2 relegated teams are from north
- 1 relegated team is from east
- 1 relegated team isfrom west
- 0 relegated teams are from south.
In this case (or similar cases) game will move 1 team from north to south regional league just to fill the gap and to get exact number of teams for that division.
In real life this is solved in different way.
For example- let use north regional division with relegated teams in example from above.
We have 16 teams in league.
1 promoted.
3 relegated-3 promoted from lower divisions
2 relegated from division #1.
Total number of teams is 17 now.
It means one more team need to be relegated for every relegated team from division #1.
-If 1 team is relegated from division #1 then number of relegated teams is 3
-If 2 teams is relegated from division #1 then number of relegated teams is 4
-If 3 teams is relegated from division #1 then number of relegated teams is 5
-If 4 teams is relegated from division #1 then number of relegated teams is 6
nowever we can have this situation also:
-If 0 teams is relegated from division #1 then number of relegated teams is 2
This means only 2 teams are relegated 100%. 4 teams above these 2 can be relegated and they are in like we like to say "relegation zone".
Now i come to the solution.
I made some hidden stages in my file to determine what teams are relegated based on number of relegated teams from higher division.
One of these stages is called "relegation zone" and this stage name can be seen in stage rules page (teams on positions 11-14 are qualified for that stage) just like when we qualify teams for relegation playoff.
I will try to explain every step and i will use screenshots to make easier for you to understand this.
First we need to make some changes to database. We need to make 4 (in this case is 4) secondary divisions (just add empty competition, set nation and make it extinct).
We will call them north secondary, east secondary, west secondary and south secondary. Now we will add teams to this secondary division but in section "teams (secondary division).
For all teams from north we will set "north secondary" as secondary divsion. For east = east secondary and so on. You understand this part.
We will not add secondary divisions as competitions in system-they are here only to help with sorting teams regionaly.
Now we can make system.
Stage 0
Its regular league stage with just some adjustments to relegation settings
As you can see number of relegated teams 2. Min 2 max 6.
4 teams are qualified for relegation zone - its stage 1
Stage 1 - Relegation zone
Its league stage with 4-8 teams.
We will set requirements like this.
-stage 0 of this competion - because we need to use teams from 11 to 14.
- stage 0 of division #1 - because we need to use relegated teams from this competition
Under "teams" section we will make main settings.
Using our secondary divsions and "ignore teams" option we will exclude all teams from south, west and east (because we set this for North regional division #2)
After we exlude teams from unwanted regions we will add relegated teams from division #1 but game will add only teams from North (if there is any) because we exluded all other regions.
We will give these teams seeding 4. (will explain this when i get to league sorting rules)
Now we will add teams from our league stage 0- teams qualified to relegation zone and we will use this order:
Seedings go from 3 to 0.
League stage settings will be like this:
as you can see we will use "team seeding" as sorting rule.
With this setting our league table will look like this:
1. relegated team from division #1
2. relegated team from division #1 (we have 2 because 2 teams from North are relegated in our example-remember? )
3. team from position 11
4. team from position 12
5. team from position 13
6. team from position 14
We will add 4 teams to "top playoff" called "decider".
and we will set league fate for that 4 "top playoff" teams.
This way top 4 teams will get "no fate" fate in stage 0 and in our case this means:
1. relegated team from division #1 nothing happens because fate is only for stage 0 of this competition
2. relegated team from division #1 nothing happens because fate is only for stage 0 of this competition
3. team from position 11 team is safe from relegation
4. team from position 12 team is safe from relegation
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- this is imaginary relegation line
5. team from position 13
6. team from position 14
Now we will add stage 2.
Stage 2 - Decider
Stage 2 is league stage with 2-6 teams.
Requirements:
Teams section:
-teams from position 15 and 16 - those teams are already relegated but we need them to fill number of teams in stage.
-qualified teams from stage 1 but we excluded those teams with "ignore teams" option because we dont need them. Those teams are already secure from relegation.
-all stage teams - but without first 4 because we excluded them in previous line
This way we will get only teams bellow our imaginary relegation line.
League settings:
we will qualify top 6 teams (max number of teams) to top playoff (without stage set)
we will set fate actions for "top playoff" teams
this way we will set "relegated" fate for teams on position 13 and 14 (teams bellow our relegation line).
Mission complete!!!
This are settings for league with basic relegation and promotion system. We can have promotion/relegation playoffs and this need more complicated system.
I will explain this in next update.
Hope you understand everything - sorry for possible mistakes- english is not my first language and this will be difficult to explain even on my native serbian language.
Cheers
THIS WORKS ONLY WHEN LEAGUES ARE ACTIVE AND LOADED IN GAME