phnompenhandy

You might need to go to the editors forum and ask in the thread made by the maker of that file.

Do you mean leagues provided by SI, or edited leagues by fans? If the latter, SI aren't responsible for that. Something I've often done is use the editor to create a squad of 14 year-olds with CA1 and put them in a team around tier 11 or below. They invariably improve so fast that by Christmas they can hold their own against older players and in a couple of seasons gain promotion. I can't blame SI for that - it's my editing that goes beyond their soak testing. But there are various ways you can use the editor or just set your own parameters to make the game sufficiently challenging at that level.

I've not got a record as I started in 1999, long before Steam or even reliable access to the internet. My annual averages always varied enormously depending on where I was with my career (and geographically, over six nations), but I'd say never less than 1500 hours per edition/annum (not including running saves overnight). Being so slow and methodical, I rarely got through ten seasons with one team in all those hours, and as a lower-league manager never got higher than the fourth tier. This year I retired, and my initial thoughts were to spend unlimited time on FM. In fact, the opposite happened - it dawned on me that it's not how I wish to spend the whole latter part of my life and have turned to writing novels instead. Thus, I have decided to retire from playing FM and not purchase FM2020 - a huge disconnect with my life. It's not through any view on FM2020 or FM itself, but simply it's time to change the direction of my life after 20 sweet years (3.5 solid of which I've spent playing the game).

So you want a realistic product? You'll fork out money for that? One where you, sat in your parents' basement staring at a glowing monitor for 10 hours a day, apply to manage professional football clubs and never ever receive so much as a polite rejection letter? Mmkay.

Same. When I started, it was a very simple game although still a bit of a learning curve after Sensible World of Soccer! I hadn't yet found this forum and its experts so I just taught myself. I simply evolved with each new annual iteration of the game although once I did stumble into this place my abilities took a quantum leap. I doubt I could get into FM today if I'd just come across it. I've looked into a lot of strategy games that I'd love to crack, but they are all far too complex for me to learn, such is the way games have evolved over the decades since i discovered CM.

I see what you're saying, but I think it's an unfair attack on SI. SI have to make the game enjoyable to a huge spectrum of players, from your lazy casuals to us diehards. By your very definition, those lazy players are not going to put in an effort to tweak default settings to make it easier for them, but we are. So it makes sense to make the game in such a way as those of us who want a better challenge simply make the choices to customise the game to how we like it. We are perfectly free to avoid the editor and choose a difficult club in a difficult league, and set further restrictions like a Youth Challenge. What the casuals choose to do and post on social media is not something that need bother us in the slightest.

Go to the league rules tab and keep clicking the links to division you're promoted to. Which division promotes you into the Lowland/Highland league? Isn't there an East of Scotland & South of Scotland Superleague or something?

'Course it is, but so what?

No, to play the file on a slow system required inordinate amounts of patience. I used windowed mode and read the whole internet when I click continue.

Yeah, you advertise. I often don't get any response from a scout or physio until after January. I also ask a new coach to take a secondary job as a scout.

The tip is listen to your scout.

That's clearly a fluke. Check the file in the editor - they might all be zero settings; if not they need changing.

Whilst those attributtes are a huge advantage, even they are not necessary. To give myself the ultimate challenge, I often give myself a squad of 14 year-olds with CA1. Most of them start with STR 1, STA 1 and understandably extremely low other physical attributes (other than perhaps NF and balance). Even there, by the second half of the season they're holding their own against older, stronger sides.

I often play at that level. When all players are so low in ability, it's easy to succeed because your human tactics are always going to outwit the AI's. To make it more of a challenge I often use the editor to make my players all start out with CA1. That makes the first few months difficult but I still usually get promotion if not in the first year, definitely in the second. The players develop not due to coaching or training, but due to playing first-team football.

https://community.sigames.com/topic/449050-fm19-wip-e22-england-to-level-22/ Central Midlands North & South are in Level 11 of Dan's file here.