[Has anybody ever lost the league ... after making it big?]

On 20/05/2021 at 11:41, laurentius82 said:

Once you win the league, you will always win it after that unless you make some really stupid (I mean like AI-level stupid) decisions in terms of squad building or tactics. IMO there's little point in playing a save beyond that point as it becomes rather tedious. 

This might be true in a top tier league where you have some of the best players in the world, but it's definitely not true everywhere. I recently had an AI team which won four cups and the league in a small nation, losing only twice domestically in about 60 matches. One of those was to me. We finished 2nd 13 points behind them. We were 11pts above third. 

[Scouting assignment, scouting pool and scout behavior question]

I've recently had my scouting range increased to cover all of Britain and Ireland after having it limited to N. Ireland only. I have at least one scout in N. Ireland, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England. I also have players who I'm putting into the Scouting Pool. The scouts who are on assignment in these countries are being assigned to players in the pool. 

Is there any detriment to this? Most of the players currently in the pool are in N. Ireland and I'm wondering if I'm causing the scouts to move back and forth between nations to complete both the national and individual player assignments, potentially costing time and money uneccesarily. Should I be segregating the scouts based on these assignments? I'm not noticing any slowdowns in the individual player scouting but I don't think I'd be able to see any decrease in performance on the national assignments and monitoring scouting costs is kind of tricky.

[Youth Recruitment is useless?]

On 02/05/2021 at 00:55, dave88 said:

So, I play with a hungarian club since more than 10 years, developed my youth facilities and yout recruitments. Wasted a tons of money and i got literally 0 player i could even use. I have to kidnapp starving argentinian kids and force them to play in my club if i want players i can use. So, spending millions on youth recruitment is just useless? 

My head of youth development's talents: working with y 17, juding player potential 17. 

Is there any secret i dont know if i want good local players or in this game you only can find talents in africa and south-amerika? 

One thing you might want to look at that I didn't think of before - Is your HoYD Hungarian or does he have knowledge of Hungary? I don't have data to back it up, but that might have an impact. Just a thought.

[Youth Recruitment is useless?]

3 minutes ago, Daveincid said:

I tried to say that this is actually happening already  I was already thinking of doing a feature-request with exactly the same thing you mentioned: a low factor boost to static values of let's say 1.2 if you overperform for years. But this is already ingame

 Sorry, I didn't catch your meaning! I'm obviously a n00b around here and I appreciate the education. It's that kind of detail that has me obsessed with this game again...

[Youth Recruitment is useless?]

12 minutes ago, Daveincid said:

Just because some values are static doesn't mean that the PA of newgens do not improve. As it's said earlier there are ways to get better newgens. The point is, that you won't reach Brazil-Level with Hungary, but usually the Teams in a Nation like Hungary still has room left in terms of Youth Coaching and stuff.

Oh sure, I didn't mean to imply that the PA of newgens is static based on that one data point. I also very much take your point that even if a Hungarian team won 5 CL's in 20 years or whatever that they wouldn't reach the levels of other more established nations. I guess what I was trying to say was that, assuming you've maxed out your youth facilities, junior coaching, etc. and was a European powerhouse for decades in game, it would be neat if Hungarian youth were "inspired" and rather than producing 0-1 wonderkids in that period they might produce 0-1.2 or whatever, weighted on the other factors like population size, club location and all the other variables already in game. With that said, if that change request popped up in my JIRA backlog I'd probably think "That's kind of neat" and move on to a feature that actually benefited more than a very small set of FM players as from my (very limited!) understanding most players don't really go more than five seasons or so on a save, if that.  

[Youth Recruitment is useless?]

1 hour ago, forameuss said:

Probably because it's more realistic that way.  A small nation winning the Champions League isn't going to suddenly mean that more kids are better at football.  These things change over generations, if at all.  

EDIT: And also to add, the sort of things that really would lead to these kinds of attributes changing aren't going to be present in the game.  Societal factors are going to be far, far stronger.  In fact, that's likely why it's static and not very gradually dynamic, because putting randomness on those things would be a poor choice to make in my opinion.

 

1 hour ago, Daveincid said:

+1. And it's not only about reputation. A small Nation is "small". So they are already limited in terms of population.  Even if in reality a club from Luxembourg would win the CL, they still don't produce several worldclass players. 

This makes sense but I'll admit to being a little disappointed that the value is totally static. I don't think sudden movement in youth development makes sense, for the reasons you both state, but I'm also kind of a weirdo who plays out 40 year saves. I think it would makes sense for some movement even in smaller nations if you had an extremely successful club like you see in "build a club"/ "build a nation" type saves over a long period. With that said, from a development perspective I completely understand why that value is static. The ROI on serving a small number of players like myself doesn't really warrant introducing potentially very weird behavior into the game.

To OP's original point, (playing on FM19 but I doubt much has changed here) I'm playing in Northern Ireland which I'm assuming has a better national youth rating than Hungary. I'm in a provincial town with a much more established club  on the other side of town. I've matched and outpaced them in terms of junior coaching, youth facilities and youth recruitment within five years and have kind of the opposite problem. I've had a golden generation and have had probably 15+ players in the last three seasons who have come through the youth side who will be useful. The issue is that six of them are strikers when what I really want is someone who can play as a ball winner in a MC/ DM role. I'm no expert, but I suspect that has more to do with the level of the Northern Irish top tier and the country's youth rating more than my facilities.

OP, maybe start scouting hot prospects in Poland, Austria, Czechia, etc. and take satisfaction that you're the club that every kid in Hungary wants to go to? I know it's frustrating, but I hope this doesn't ruin your save for you. 

[Youth Recruitment is useless?]

15 hours ago, Bigpole said:

youth rating is fixed, league reputation is not but it won't improve youth quality.

Do you happen to know the reasoning for this? Is this to ensure that on longer saves where you're winning multiple CLs as BATE or whatever that your smaller nation doesn't produce more wonderkids than larger nations or those with more history?

[Did you ever "fall back“ or "struggle“]

I'm kind of going through this in my save now. I'm still on FM19.

Started in the third tier of Northern Ireland. Won the third tier, the Intermediate Cup (second and third tier teams, plus top flight reserve sides) and the League Cup. Got to a semi final of a regional cup with a few top tier sides and did okay in the national cup.

Second season, we won the league, the Intermediate Cup, the regional cup and the national cup which got us into Europe. Was knocked out of the League Cup in extra time of the quarter finals because I'm a goof and made a bad tactical error.

Third season, we won the top flight and it wasn't particularly close. We were 13 points clear, scored 93 with a GD of 51. Next highest GD was 22. Won the Charity Shield and the regional cup, got to the quarters in the League Cup.

In the fourth season we finished third after putting in a good chase for the title and being in first for most of the first half of the season before running out of steam.  Won the regional cup and Charity Shield, lost in the semi final of the national cup and the finals of the League Cup. 

I'm currently in my fifth season and Crusaders have absolutely romped it, losing only twice in all domestic competitions and are on GD of 60 with five matches remaining. They're 19 points ahead of me in second. I'm 11 points clear of third. They are likely to take every domestic cup they enter as well.

Even in FM19, the AI is definitely adjusting to you. You have to adapt and continue to build, especially if you come into the top flight with a group of guys who are waaaaaaay below average in pretty every aspect in terms of attributes. I got way overconfident after that first season in the top division and was sentimental towards my core of guys who had piled up all that silverware. And in my case, we had a couple of clubs get really, really hot for a season. I haven't really played since like FM10 and, personally, I love it. Much less of a sense of "fire and forget" in the newer versions IMHO.