[How to do to create regional divisions so right teams are promoted and relegated to the same regions as they are from?]

Don't get your hopes up too high regarding teams being placed in the right divisions.

 

When I tried to make the Dutch regional system, I thought I had a bulletproof system, with regional boundaries per division, with every team their preferred regional division on each tier was set. And in the game it still happened that teams from the north part of the country ended up in a division for the southern teams.

 

I have to admit, the last time I tried something like that was back in 2017, so maybe things have improved the past years.

 

But just saying: don't be too disappointed if - after hours and hours of editor work - the game still has a mind of its own.

[Why does FM not follow the real life rules for European Cup qualifying?]

13 minutes ago, XaW said:

Unfortunately, the software doesn’t allow us to move posts there, sorry. That proof should be enough, I’d think.

I understand. Will make a bug report, and copy/paste my opening post there, and will wait for further instructions as to the proof SI wants (savefile and/or screenshots).

[Why does FM not follow the real life rules for European Cup qualifying?]

1 hour ago, \'Appy \'Ammer said:

I would throw that over into the bugs forum and back it up with a link to the correct rules to support what you say. In the meantime you may be able to do some magic using the pre game editor to adjust things. 

As much as I love fiddling with the pregame editor, doing some magic on especially the European Cups would mean a complete build-up from scratch with no guarantee that will work because of some hardcoded elements.

[Why does FM not follow the real life rules for European Cup qualifying?]

1 hour ago, XaW said:

I was sure it was handled correctly in the game, but if you think it's not then post in here, with links to proof.

https://community.sigames.com/bugtracker/football-manager-2024-early-access-bugs-tracker/competition-rules-and-schedule/europe-competition-specific-issues/

Unfortunately, it isn't.

 

I have a game in which I am in 2037 now, and every season I monitored how the qualifying process was handled by the game. And not one year was done correctly.

In the current season, France obtained an extra CL-ticket because they ended 2nd in the year-list. France has 3 direct CL-places and one league-phase qualifying place. You would think that the team that ended 4th (thus playing in league-phase qualifying) would get that extra CL-spot and all teams below would be upgraded (5th place CL-qualifying instead of Europa League league phase etc.). The 4th placed team did get the direct CL-spot, but their place in qualifying was left empty, and as a result, France didn't get an extra team in Europe.

Result of that open spot was that the Portugese team in the league phase qualifying was upgraded from Q3 to the play-offs. That never happens in real life.

The extra team rule apparently only applies to the countries in the top 4, with 4 direct spots to the league phase of the CL.

 

I could make a bug report, but if one of the moderators could move this topic to the appropiate section that would be greatly appreciated. As for the proof, I can download my savefile, of post some screenshots.

[Why does FM not follow the real life rules for European Cup qualifying?]

I've noticed in all UEFA club competitions that FM does not follow the qualifying rules in real life, and it's quite annoying for me and even a bit of a gamebreaker.

 

For instance: if the winner of the Champions League of last season qualifies for the league phase of the next CL via their domestic league, in real life the spot left open by the CLTH goes to the club which has the highest coefficient in the champions path. Ans if the winner of the Europa League qualifies via their domestic league, the spot left by the ELTH goes to the club with the highest coefficient overall in the qualifying stages.

 

Instead: FM appoints the spot left by the CLTH to the champion of the country 11th on the coefficient list, and the ELTH spot to the champion of country 12. And with those spots taken, you'd expect the champions of the countries 15 and 16 would automatically move to the play-offs of the champions path (replacing the champions of 11 and 12), but FM skips the champion of country 15, and the champions of 16 and 17 move to the play-offs!!

And that's just one example. In Europa League and Conference League similar things happen, especially with rebalancing the qualifying rounds.

 

Adding insult to injury, the game also doesn't use the correct qualifying method regarding the UEFA qualifying section for the European and World championships.

And as said, this ticks me of big time!

 

Is it possible for SI to adjust this in one of the updates, or are we forced to wait until FM25 and hope for the best SI fixes this?

[[FM24] Advanced editor questions from an ancient user]

Thanks for the reply @rusty217 . Method 1 didn't work for me, even after carefully going through all the remaining stages to look for wrong stage numbers. In the Continental Cup section, no stages were displayed, so maybe I did miss something, or my first guess (something hardcoded in the game) is right.

 

So I tried method 2 (copying entire league structures), and that worked like a charm!! I've tested it a few times in game, and all looks fine. I even could add tier 3 very easily, to be playable and I'm now working on tier 4 (with 2 subdivisions). Based on my experience that shouldn't be that hard too.

 

You've helped me a lot, thanks again!!

[[FM24] Advanced editor questions from an ancient user]

Once upon a time ago.....

 

Maybe some people will recognize me. Long ago, I've made a custom database for the Dutch league structure, all the way down to level 9. That was indeed a long time ago, the last database was for FM17. Due to personal circumstances and a busy professional life, I lost track of the FM-series after FM17. Until now. I've purchased the FM24-game, and because blood is thicker than water, I've started tinkering again with the editor. Not necessarily with the intention to make a Dutch football pyramid again, but just to slightly alter the Dutch leagues. I really dislike the structure with play-offs for the Conference League in the Eredivisie, and the period system in the Keuken Kampioen Divisie. Plus the fact that there's no relegation possible from the Keuken Kampioen Divisie, but those last two 'problems' can be easily solved.

 

With the first problem however, I've hit a snag. Apparently. my advanced editor skills are 'a bit' rusty after 7 years not doing anything with it, and I can't get the Dutch leagues working like I want them to. Here's the problem:

 

When opening the Dutch leagues, there are two Eredivisie-structures. One default, and one Euro teams. Because I want to get rid of the play-offs for the Conference League ticket, I removed the Euro teams one alltogether, and in the default structure, I deleted stages 1 (the Euro playoffs hidden stage) and 3 (an empty hidden stage). And in stage 0 (competition), I altered everything which has to do with the Euro play-offs. With stage 2 (the promotion/relegation play-offs) I didn't alter anything...yet.

 

When I test the Eredivisie, the editor keeps saying that the competition is not finished on time to start the new season. And I can't for the life of me figure out why it's doing that. I've checked every date section of the competition, and checked it again, and again, but it keeps producing that error. Maybe there's something hardcoded in the game that prevents altering this?

 

So, I came up with the idea to just copy a competition structure to the Dutch pyramid. Like the German Bundesliga and 2. Bundesliga. I want to keep those competitions, but  I want the formats of both competitons to be applied to the Eredivie and Keuken Kampioen Divisie. I just don't know how to copy one competition structure of a country to another competition structure of a different country. Is that even possible or do I need to start from scratch?

 

Any help is greatly appreciated!!

[[FM24] FM Auto Editor Project]

Wow, this looks really, really exciting for me!!

 

A couple of years ago, I created a database for the Dutch league structure, down to Tier 11. I needed to add competitions (parent and child competitions), cities, clubs (approx. 2500, including home kits), stadiums, regional boundaries etc.

I used a pretty big Excel (and horrible looking) spreadsheet to do a mass edit, with converting the data in the spreadsheet to an .xml file and loading it in the editor. The last time (FM17) it worked well, although it was very much work.

 

Now, after a 7-years absence, I wanted to do the same, only to find out the FM24 editor can only produce .fmf files and does not allow .xml file to be saved anymore. That sort of files I used to identify what parameters I needed to mass edit with my spreadsheet. So I pretty much had given up my efforts to make a new database for the Dutch leagues.

 

Until I found this, and it makes my life a lot easier. I still need to look into it, if it can do everything I need it to do. But the amount of workload it takes of my hands, is amazing.

[The Addition of Dutch Lower Leagues (HELP thread)]

Good work! Just curious: is this for FM17 or FM18?

[The Addition of Dutch Lower Leagues (HELP thread)]

In real life, there could be an interesting development concerning the "Jong"-teams.

Rumour has it that in due course those teams will be removed from Tweede Divisie and lower. In the Eerste Divisie 4 "Jong"-teams would remain.

Plan is that the "Jong"-teams get a separate competition, and that the champion will play against the worst "Jong"-team of the Eerste Divisie for a place in that division next year. And that the champion of the Tweede Divisie would play a play-off with the worst A-teram of the Eerste Divisie for a place in that division next year.

This would be hell to recreate in FM! How on earth can you attach that "Jong"-competition next to the Tweede Divisie (would be the same tier) and make sure that the right teams play in the right divisions? Something for the die-hard editors to figure out.

[The Addition of Dutch Lower Leagues (HELP thread)]

I think it will be a hell of a challenge to get the new rules regarding the Jong-teams into the game. The KNVB has proposed to set the maximum number of Jong-teams per competition to 4 as of season 2018/2019. I assume that the 4th Jong-team per competition will be relegated and the 1st Jong-team will get a promotion (except from Eerste Divisie to Eredivisie and in case the A-team drops to the competition in which the Jong-team plays. In that case the Jong-team is automatically relegated). And the KNVB has stated that Jong-teams of professional clubs that haven't entered the piramid yet, would be granted a start as high as 3e Divisie or Hoofdklasse. Until now, new Jong-teams had to start all the way down the piramid.

It probably requires two or more hidden stages to determine the relegated teams. One hidden stage for the regular teams, and at least one hidden stage for the Jong-teams.

I'm trying to get to grips with this issue, but still haven't found the best way to get this into the game.

On a different note: my own database with 10 tiers of Dutch football is done, and works like a charm. It's a mix between the real life piramid and some fantasy elements (such as a League-cup) but people doesn't seem to mind that. I haven't released the database on this forum yet, because I still need to see what havoc the 17.3.0 update has wreaked to my database. Bit nervous to open the database with the editor...

[The Addition of Dutch Lower Leagues (HELP thread)]

2 hours ago, Slabbekoorn said:

Have fun! Don't forget to download Etzella's kit files, I'm finally starting a save file and I'm leaning towards VC Vlissingen.

 

Dutch Pyramid v3.0.fmf

Gonna give this one a try too. What I forgot to ask you: did the teams hold their right competitions during your testrun until 2024, or was there a big resuffle going on?

[The Addition of Dutch Lower Leagues (HELP thread)]

22 minutes ago, Slabbekoorn said:

I never knew that the regional divisions will disband over time, I'll holiday some seasons to see for myself.

But I still don't really know what you mean:p, but my problem is that the group stage (stage 0) draws teams from Hoofdklasse and Eerste Klasse but adding the cup stage will result into the "stage 0 (the group stage) has no teams" error. I'm having a hunch that the stage 0 draws the teams from the leagues and puts them back after stage 0 of the group playoffs, and the cup phase will try to draw them from stage 0 but the teams are already back in their leagues and waiting for the season update day to distribute the teams.

Ah, now I know what you mean. Perhaps I can help you with that. I still have my files from FM13, where I made a database. Maybe if you take a look at that structure, it might help you in finding a solution. Just be patient.

[The Addition of Dutch Lower Leagues (HELP thread)]

21 hours ago, Slabbekoorn said:

We've set regional divisions in the club info and the game will try to sort the teams automatically for us and it works ingame. And I've seperated the playoffs in the new file meaning that an even amount of saturday clubs will relegate/get promoted. The only way saturday and sunday division will mix is when a lot of (for example) sunday clubs relegate from the Tweede Divisie but that's also how it is in real life.

But can you further explain your possible solution? The problem I'm having is that a cup locates the teams just fine but it won't find any teams when I turn it into a group.

Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but setting regional divisions for a club isn't enough. In the course of several seasons, the game will mix up Saturday and Sunday teams, even if you set regional boundaries for the competitions and the longtidude/lattitude for the cities involved. I don't know exactly how the game sorts the clubs into the right divisions, but I think it has something to do with the reputation. In my FM14-database with my database all the way to 5e klasse, I removed the Saturday/Sunday separation and only went for a regional separation, and still some weaker clubs from the Northern part of Holland (in my case Overijssel) ended up in a division with clubs from the Southern part (Zeeland). It doesn't make any sense. The regional divisions settings and all the other settings will help though... a little bit.

As for the solution, it is quite simple really. Normally you create a parent competition and designate all the competions involved to it by using the 'multiple competitions' function. Convenient, because when competitions are all the same, you only have to enter all the paramaters and phases once, which saves you a lot of time. But you can also split them up. In this case you can create a 'multiple competitions' with the competitions that use one particular kind of play-off, and another 'multiple competitions' with the other ones. In doing that, you can create a different play-off phase for each multiple competitions -group.

I hope this makes a bit of sense. If it doesn't, maybe we'll have to switch to Dutch in order for me to explain it a bit better.

[The Addition of Dutch Lower Leagues (HELP thread)]

Great work guys, love the way you try to solve the issues that come across.

Just one question though: how will you keep the Saturday-clubs in a Saturday-league and the Sunday-clubs in a Sunday-league? In previous FM-games it was impossible to keep those clubs in the right section. Isn't that annoying if after a few seasons the clubs are in the wrong section? I solved that by removing the Saturday/Sunday separation alltogether.

About the Hoofdklasse playoffs: it isn't necesserary to put all the competions in one multiple-competitions setup (assuming you work with the advanced editor). If you create a multiple competitions setup with the competitions with the two stages setup and another one with the group/ko setup and place them below the same parent competion, you should be able to crack that problem.

[*Official* Editor Feature Requests]

Pretty sure some/all things are already mentioned:

1. Ability to import data from Excel-sheets (or .txt-files, whatever). That would be a huge help for me, adding 4000+ competitions, teams, cities and stadiums each year.

2. Also the ability to easily change the club colours of imported teams, if possible with the same file mentioned under 1.

3. A better working regional split for custum added regional divisions. Each year I enter regional boundaries to competitions on the same level, and I add coordinates to cities and the preferred competion to clubs, and each year FM makes a mess of the regional divisions, with clubs entering competitions for which they have to travel hundreds of km's instead of a competition nearby.

4. A manual to the editor, both basic and advanced. I know my knowledge of the advanced editor is pretty extensive, but some features still are unknown to me.

If those 4 options would be added to the editor, I seriously would consider buying that FM-game. Due to my disappointment in the editor I've declined on FM15 and are still playing FM14 (with my own regional database, with all its flaws and setbacks).