The FM10 International challenge

[MadWoodster]

OK for the last couple of years I've set a challenge basically to try and get one of the worst international teams to win their continental cup and then the world cup! (actually the challenge is normally just trying to get to the world cup)

This year will be no different, but before I do so, I would like to throw open some ideas:

First to include all nations, some people complain that the worst 50 or so teams are not enough and they want more nations to compete. I can include all nations, and use my multiplier to multiple the points you get so winning the world cup with Brazil is only worth 10 points but winning it with American Samoa is worth 1000 points! (or maybe I should just say any nation outside the top 100)

Secondly, Things are made more fun for Caribbean nations with the introduction of the Caribbean cup.

However, having beaten the editor in submission, I've found a way to add an annual cup of nations (see my editor hideaway thread for more info on how to do that) are there any annual cup of nations you want added? (unfortunately they have to happen every year not every 2/4 years and will have no effect on qualifying for any major tournament apart from possibly boosting your fifa ranking if you win a game in them but this is no more effect than winning a friendly match) I believe their are 3 oceania nations that have agreed some annual competitions between the 3 of them to celebrate their independence.

Thirdly, are we going to allow club management alongside? Possibly with a points deficit for doing so but some people have asked for this.

Fourthly, any suggestions are welcome.

[DodgeeD]

Hi MadWoodster,

Good to see this back this year as the addition of the extra tournaments and domestic leagues should give it a lot more potential (and regens!).

Perhaps to include more nations, the criteria could be changed to picking teams who have never won their continental tournament or qualified for the World Cup before or teams ranked below #100 (although, according to FIFA.com, this currently includes China).

For annual competitions, the CECAFA Cup (central and east Africa) is annual, as are The COSAFA Senior Challenge (southern africa) and the Baltic Cup. There are plenty more regional contests that are bi-annual or held at irregular intervals that you might consider such as the Amílcar Cabral Cup (west Africa), Gulf Cup (Persian Gulf states), ASEAN Cup (Southeast Asia), SAFF Championship (South Asia), West Asian Championship and East Asian Championship. If the Carribean Cup is in there, why not the UNCAF NAtions Cup (Central America) as well? Once I finally get a copy of the game, I'll try to give a hand on whatever editing needs to be done.

Personally, I wouldn't allow club management as a cornerstone of this challenge to date has been trying to do your best with what you've got rtaher than hopping club to club and trying to improve youth facilities etc. Maybe you could allow it as an alternative version of the challenge so players could do it alongside their other saves though.

Apart from that, I'm looking forward to having another crack at this one!

[MadWoodster]

Thank you DodgeeD for your comments and the information on the extra competitions. As you say the fact people can now turn on the national leagues of these sides will help, though for fairness they should probably have to turn on other leagues in their continent otherwise itmight give say American Samoa an unfair advantage over the other Oceania nations.

While China may seem a strong side to be outside of the top 100 it would be interesting to see what people could do with them, can they be turned into a world powerhouse. Might be a bit difficult working out who has and hasn't qualified for world cup and are their any nations that have fallen from grace and who once qualified for the world cup but are no longer as good as they were?

The editing is fairly easy for these competitions just a shame I can't get them to work on a bi-annual basis

I understand your concerns about club management, if I do an alternative version do I keep everything in one thread or make two threads?

As always people's comments are most welcome,

[DodgeeD]

Maybe it's best to do nations ranked 100 or below - that gives over a 100 nations to play with and would make up for the fact that some of them may not have enough players in the database to make that team playable from the start.

I had a look at the demo again and it seems the SAFF Championship is already there as it's used as a pre-qualifier for the Asian Cup - one less thing to do!

After some more thought on the club issue, I think no club management is the best way to go. There aren't really any challenges on this forum that focus on international football and over the last two versions of FM, I've enjoye keeping this challenge as a 2nd save that I can whizz through the seasons on.

[MadWoodster]

SI have given us a new feature whereby as well as selecting databases we can select all the players from particular nations easily just by clicking on custom, there is nearly 300,000 players in this year's database so most nations should be covered.

Just had a look in my holiday game that I'm using to test one or two things out and couldn't see the SAFF, they've got the challenge cup but this is a different tournament to the SAFF as it takes in at least 16 nations but does as you say act as a pre-qualifier for the Asian cup. (the SAFF only has 8 nations according to the link you gave me)

The other problem with club management is that it would vastly slow this challenge down, as you say to do this challenge you need to think more long term and so whizzing through seasons is needful.

[MadWoodster]

To make the challenge more interesting I am looking at allowing some national leagues to be added, however, I am concerned that if say you just add American Samoa league to the challenge then America Samoa will get an unfair advantage in Oceania, might run some tests and see if having their league running vastly improves their performance for the computer.